


Disheveled

by Rabid1st



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Culture, Alien Gender/Sexuality, Dream Sex, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Light Bondage, Oral Sex, Science Fiction, Sexual Experimentation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-06 07:22:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 241,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1104035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rabid1st/pseuds/Rabid1st
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Disheveled is the Doctor/Rose love story as I saw it during S2. It is an award winning fic, written and posted during the original airing of S2 and S3 of new Doctor Who. It contains elements that appear much later in the series, but those are purely coincidental. Essentially a Doctor/Rose love story of epic proportions, spanning many regenerations, it relies heavily on Old School canon, some of which has been Moffed. It is a long fic, over 500 pages, and full of biological and culture detail for Time Lords, mostly based on my imagination and views of old school canon.</p><p>I think of it as a happy-ever-after story, but there are major angsty, triggery things that happen as we meander along. This is the warning you get for those. Fiction without conflict and surprise is hardly worth anyone's time. This work is for emotionally mature readers who can tolerate sexual exploration, tension and surprises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

DISHEVELED  
By Rabid1st  
Dr. Who...Ten/Rose  
Rating: Mature – Explicit  
Pairing: Rose/Ten, Rose/Nine, Doctor/Rose  
Beta Babes: Various  
Warning: Adult situations, not work safe, fun and frolic-y at points and serious at others.

Spoilers: All of S2 – AU after Doomsday

Summary: This is Ten/Rose smutfic...of a sort...things are done differently and with the tongue...it gets wild...it gets deep....it meanders...and that's all I'm saying...

Disclaimer: I don’t own these characters. If I did…the show would be censored by…everyone but you smutty few. That said, I’m a nice person and I’m hardly worth suing, unless you fancy a 1999 Toyota or a large collection of books on overcoming writer's block. All characters and situations belong to the BBC and Dr. Who and Russell Davies, etc. I'm just borrowing them for the moment. I humbly thank Russell T. Davies for creating the sweetest, most-loving, most-genuinely iconic couple in the history of the world for me to play with. I really couldn't resist.

 

PART ONE

While the Doctor dreamed of 18th Century France, ballroom dancing, stirring music and fantastic gardens full of fragrant blossoms and still reflecting pools, Rose Tyler dreamed of throttling him. She wouldn’t, of course, even if bathwater still beaded on her inner thighs. Even if she was wearing the most ridiculous dressing gown imaginable. Even if he’d gone out of his way lately to impress on her how little she really meant to him and now suddenly demanded her complete attention. He hurt. He mourned. He needed her. 

Like Rose, the TARDIS understood what Mickey did not -- the Doctor wasn’t “always alright.” There were times when the world inside his head got very dark indeed and even in his sleep he was dangerous. The nightmares had no doubt returned, along with the burning pain. She’d thought the regeneration had repaired his mind, like it had renewed his body and altered his personality. It had rebooted him, in a way. He’d been better ever since. Better for so long she’d hoped he was cured. Or perhaps, if she was being completely honest, she hadn’t hoped for that at all. 

Still, damn the French! Damn that woman for hurting him all over again. Rose checked her anger. Closing her eyes for a moment, she let her ire bleed away. She couldn’t blame Reinette for loving him, not really. It would be like blaming her for loving sunny days. If there was one thing Rose had learned from Sarah Jane it was that the Doctor wasn’t diminished by sharing. There was always enough of him to go around and nobody got cast in the shade. He swept into your life and took over. You went along with whatever happened, like Rose was going along now...to wherever he was leading her. 

Experience had gotten her used to being jerked around like a Pekinese on a short leash by the Doctor’s subconscious. The first time it had happened, oh, so long ago, she’d actually screamed. She remembered fighting to keep her place and losing the fight. She’d been afraid of the moving walls, afraid they would crush her or crowd her out into space. She’d resisted their insistent press, pounding on them and shouting until he came to find her. Red-faced, she’d accused the TARDIS of malfunctioning and he’d taken quick offense. There was, he'd growled, nothing wrong with his ship and she was a silly girl besides, unworthy of traveling with him. Recrimination had flown from both sides. 

By the second time, she’d learned more trust. Fairly sure of her safety, she’d gone along with the process. Curious about it and wanting to prove she was right and his ship was on the blink. She’d found him on the floor of the console room, slack-jawed and unresponsive. Panic had pulsed through her. Certain he was dead she’d pressed an ear to his chest, discovering his two heartbeats. The dual rhythm had fascinated her and she’d lingered to listen. He woke to find her draped across him. Emitting a strangled cry, he’d jerked upright, shoving her away with both hands and scrambling backward. He'd looked like a virgin desperately evading a masher and she'd simply had to laugh. Their strained silence on the subject lasted three days. On the fourth day, he'd grudgingly admitted there was a problem. 

_He came to her room, slumping into a chair as far away from her as he could manage. Arms crossed tightly over his chest, he gruffly explained about the war and his nightmares. He couldn’t sleep, hadn’t slept since destroying his world. How was that possible? she asked. Time Lord, he said, giving her his universal answer. It was a strain, though, on all his systems. Even he needed rest from time to time. And somehow she made rest possible. She could tell he didn’t like admitting it. He didn’t like depending on anyone for anything but they grew used to the odd situation._

_It was only sleeping after all. He started to find her when he grew tired but he wasn’t always aware of his need. He nodded off unexpectedly from time to time. When that happened the TARDIS intervened and brought Rose to him. She didn't mind. Wandering the halls in her nightshirt was only a minor inconvenience. It didn’t become a problem until Jack came onboard. He reintroduced the sore subject over breakfast one morning._

_“Rose tell you she came by my room last night?” He began before shoveling eggs into his mouth. He chewed and swallowed and then said, “Wearing…or I should say…not wearing this filmy little,” the Doctor looked up from his plate, blue eyes steely, and Jack smoothly switching gears, “that is…she had on a lovely sleep ensemble, very tasteful and becoming.”_

_“Shortest route,” Rose murmured. “Sorry.”_

_“And I gather she means shortest route to you?” Jack asked the impassively listening Doctor, who shrugged enigmatically. Jack sighed. “Well, you can imagine my disappointment as she twiddles her fingers at me and then rushes out through the magically appearing door.” He pointed his fork at the Doctor’s nose. “I call that inconsiderate of another man’s needs.”_

_“Far be it from me to be inconsiderate,” the Doctor said, smiling faintly as he buttered a slice of toast. Setting the knife down, he looked up and said, “Alright then, might as well stop fighting it. We’ll keep it simple.”_

_“Everyone sleeps together?” Jack suggested, hopefully._

_“Not that simple,” the Doctor said. “Rose, move your things to the larger bedroom. We’ll share it from now on.”_

_Rose opened her mouth to protest but closed it again without commenting and just like that it was settled._

Until her Doctor sent her away and nearly died and then just like that it was over. It ended with his regeneration. He woke up a changed man, no longer troubled by bad dreams. As far as she could tell, he was no longer troubled by anything. She kept the larger bedroom. He stopped coming by. The TARDIS stopped moving her around like a chess piece. The Doctor didn’t appear to need her any more. 

Or so she thought. And then, only minutes ago, the familiar disorientation hit as she climbed out of her bath. She'd been running a towel over her skin, imagining his long fingered hands following its route when the walls inched forward as if in response. Hair tickled her cheek when she spun around. A few wet strands had escaped from the clips she used to keep it dry. After such a long hiatus, the morphing room caught her momentarily off guard. But it hadn’t taken her long to adjust. She’d been through this often enough. Dropping the towel, she raced to her closet, grabbing something before the closet disappeared. Clutching the filmy and completely unfamiliar robe to her chest, she moved with the floor and found herself in the corridor. Walls shifted. Staircases spiraled upward. She put on the dressing gown and walked and climbed, as directed. 

Eventually, the scenery stopped changing. Holding onto an unwavering doorframe, Rose took a moment to free her mind of escalator equilibrium before focusing on her surroundings. She stood at the door of a vast and obviously multipurpose room. It was part library, part garden and part boudoir, definitely a work in progress. The ceiling rolled back as she watched, exposing stars. The Doctor was in. Sleeping, as she’d expected. Knowing he had levels of awareness and might sense her if she moved, Rose stood very still, mesmerized by the beauty around her and by him.

He’d fallen asleep reading. She could see the book, tottering on his knee but braced by one relaxed hand. He was reclined in a non-reclining chair. Feet propped up on his desk. Ankles crossed. He looked very young and charmingly disheveled. More so then usual because he always looked as if he’d slept in his clothes. He went about rumpled. Ties loosened. Their knots askew. Shirts insufficiently tucked. His suit jacket partially unbuttoned. These days, anyone who saw them step out of the police box would have no question about what they’d been doing in the very confined space. 

The funny thing, for Rose, was the effect his disarray had on her. It pulled her in, closer and closer. She wanted to remedy it. Her fingers itched to tidy him, to button and tuck. Or alternatively, she longed to break through all pretenses and start undressing him. She had an abiding desire to comb through his hair with her fingers and tug off his tie. She wanted to get to his skin. 

Seeing him sleeping, vulnerable and unguarded, sent a hot swirl of longing through her. She thought she must love him because nothing else could possibly feel like this. Ever since the regeneration, her body seemed primed to ignite whenever he got too close. She studied him. His suit was crumpled. His hair mussed. His lower lip pouted just a little. She wanted to straddle him in the chair. Wake him with kisses. Would he respond in kind or laugh and gently set her aside? She didn’t know. He kept confounding her. There was something about his new persona, something captivating yet remote. He flirted with everyone. It meant nothing. But a careless gesture, a sidelong look, could spike her temperature. Send her pulse into overdrive. She dreamed of him, dreamed of his touch, his voice. And now, he was dreaming of her again.

He shifted in his sleep, murmuring something unintelligible. His chair creaked, rocking a little on its perilous fulcrum. And his book started its inevitable slide to the floor. Rose took a tentative step toward him and then another.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Doctor woke in stages. A score of senses reported in early to orient him to his exact position in time and space. They assessed his surroundings. A new room, he was in a new room. So different from the one he remembered reading in a few hours ago. He discovered a person in close proximity and named her Rose as she leaned across his knee. 

He must have dropped his book. Rose was retrieving it. She’d braced her hand, ever so lightly, against the arm of his chair. He absently adjusted his tilt to accommodate her added pressure. Information poured into his brain. She needed a haircut. She’d eaten Chinese food recently. She wanted to straddle him and kiss him but for some reason he didn’t quite understand wouldn’t be doing that. She smelled like a day at the beach. He breathed in cocoa butter, aromatic oils, salt and wet heat. The clean, provocative scent combined with the input of his other senses and sated him. Everything said Rose. Everything comforted. 

In the midst of all this cerebral activity, it took a disorienting moment for him to recall nodding off. He remembered choosing a book and tipping his chair back to read. He’d found a comfortable point between the inevitability of gravity and his own sense of defiance after he’d propped his feet up on the desk. Some time later he must have dozed. He’d dreamed of happy things: cotillions and bananas and Rose. They’d danced for hours. She’d taken him into a garden and left him reeling with hot sweet kisses. 

His conscience prodded him. He’d dreamed of Rose and Rose was here. It had happened again. The TARDIS had fulfilled his unconscious wish and brought him a present. Rose was here against her will…and his. He wondered if Timmy ever had this sort of muddle with Lassie. Did she occasionally bring him beautiful women when all he wanted was a way out of the well? ‘Get me a rope, girl, R.O.P. (notice the difference) E.,’ he mentally yelled at the TARDIS. The ship gave no sign she'd heard, let alone understood him.

The Doctor sighed. He couldn’t believe he was still doing this. It was embarrassing to lose control of his own mind, his own ship. He’d hoped he was cured. Or perhaps, if he was being completely honest, he hadn’t hoped for that at all. 

He opened his eyes. Above him, where his library’s ceiling had been, starry nebula swirled. He’d created an observatory in his sleep. It delighted him. He almost grinned at the night sky winking overhead. A window on a fixed point in time perhaps, or a hologram, he wasn’t sure. Part of him wanted to climb up a ladder and find out but he kept the urge in check. He didn’t want to get distracted just now by minutia. 

He took a moment to admire the celestial beauty and then transferred the rest of his attention to his companion. Her diaphanous dressing gown seemed completely out of character and was ill fitting besides. ‘French,’ the Doctor thought. He chewed the inside of his lip in consternation. Not the right period but certainly not modern, and therefore, probably his fault. His unconscious mind had a mind of its own. And it had been very naughty, indeed. 

Though he doubted he could be blamed for the state of her hair. She had it clipped on top of her head but strands of it spilled onto her neck, creating a halo around her face. Improperly restrained hair could not be laid at his doorstep. He would have it all down, free for his fingers to explore. He could get tangled up in her. Did she know? Did she have any idea the magnitude of it...what he felt for her? Her need multiplied ten-fold in him. But she didn’t seem to care, didn’t seem to notice the changes in him that were so apparent to French courtesans and cat-faced nurses and tea-shop girls with dimples. 

She straightened with his book in her hands and as she came up her gown slipped down, exposing too much satin-smooth skin. The Doctor, who had in 900 years taken no interest at all in the human breast, found the vast room suddenly very close. He couldn’t breathe. The walls seemed to press him into Rose. He gave the architecture a quick reprimand just in case the effect wasn’t strictly hormonal. Gravity took advantage of his momentarily loss of concentration. The front legs of his chair hit the floor with a bang. 

Rose flinched. Trying to step backward she bumped into the desk and then self-consciously adjusted her gown, yanking the sleeve up her shoulder with an impatient tug. He tried to blink her out of soft-focus but she stayed stubbornly fuzzy. It puzzled him for a moment before he remembered he was wearing his reading glasses. He fumbled a hand up and dragged the spectacles down his nose. Rose met his eye.

Peering over the tortoise-shell frames, he smiled ingenuously. “Hello,” he murmured, infusing the word with sunshine. “I was, quite coincidentally, just dreaming of roses.”

“I can tell,” she informed him in a tone as tenderly indulgent as his own. They stared at one another speechless and enrapt for a moment. The Doctor felt like he was floating up out of his body until Rose broke the connection. Drawing in a sharp breath, she turned her head away. “You’re doing it again,” she said, brusquely. “I thought since you’d changed…you didn’t need…I mean…you’ve been better ever since. You haven’t been to see me…” 

“Miss me?” he asked, in such a wickedly suggestive way it brought her gaze back to his. He took his glasses completely off, folding them away into an inside coat pocket. “Because you just say the word and I'm there. I’ll snuggle up next to you every…”

“I didn’t say I wanted you to... Look, I’m…confused, is all. And a little put out, yeah? You can’t just bounce me around like this. It’s…it’s inconvenient.” 

He nodded sympathetically but went on smiling until Rose lost most of her bristle. She couldn’t stay angry with him and he took merciless advantage of this weakness. He watched her gradually become aware of how close he was. He’d trapped her between his knee and the edge of the desk. She would have to slide around him to escape. To cover her embarrassment, she glanced at the book she was clutching to her chest, truly, seeing the title for the first time. The Doctor waited for her reaction. He saw her read the title to herself, “The Lesbian Kama Sutra.” Her eyes grew rounder, more luminescent. The concept took her to the right frame of mind. All sorts of sexual signals flared for his senses to catalog. Rose turned an even deeper shade of crimson.

He pretended not to notice as he gently tugged the book from her folded arms. She’d have to get over her uncharacteristic shyness if they were going to move forward but he didn’t want to introduce the central topic just yet. He didn’t really know where to begin. If only he could have spent a little more time with Reinette. She’d taught him so much, in such a short time. He settled the book in his lap and tipped his chair back again, staring at the ceiling as he answered Rose’s implied question.

“New neurons. All firing at once. Brain working on every cylinder post-regeneration. I’m bursting with energy. I’ll need less sleep for...oh,” He pursed his lips and his gaze flitted like a butterfly along the wall to the door as he calculated. “Let’s say...the next decade or so.” His wandering eye returned to settle on her again as he asked, “Did I wake you?”

She shook her head, her gaze on the floor. “But I was taking a bath.”

“Ah…that explains the…” He wafted a hand by her chest, catching a bit of her robe’s gauzy material between his fingers, “Damp,” he finished, in a very small voice.

“This,” she plucked at her attire, “this is you, right? First thing that came to hand but I don’t recognize it. Better than naked, ‘o course, but it’s not really me.” She almost asked if it reminded him of Reinette. But she really didn’t want to know.

“Mmhhhmmm…” he hummed, pleasant thoughts lifting the corners of his mouth. It could have been agreement but he wasn’t going to admit to the sin of dressing her in negligees. 

He had other sins in mind. His chair rocked on its two legs as he considered where to begin with the sinning. Rose yearned for him. He continued to search her face for several long seconds until finally she lifted her chin to meet his eye. Her gaze caught in the web of his. Something sparked under his skin. They both swallowed convulsively.

It gave him a slight pang to tear his gaze from hers. His head turned but his eyes stayed fixed on her face for the longest time until finally he managed to break the hold she had on him. Tipping his head, he peered around her to admire the room. What he saw brought a huge grin to his face. He nearly purred with approval as he swept an appraisingly glance around the new digs, pad...flop. He wanted to call it something smashing. What had been his library was now a sultan's paradise, the harem garden perhaps. His bookshelves remained, lining the two walls behind him. But they were, along with his desk and chair, the only trace of the room he’d fallen asleep in. 

“Oh, this is nice,” he said, making the word ‘nice’ sound unbelievably sexy to Rose’s ears. He sucked on it like a toffee, turning it in his mouth. “This is very, very nice."

His desk looked much the same, still piled high with books and journals. But beyond it there was a neatly trimmed lawn and an incongruous bed. Everywhere there was soft golden light. Stars twinkled above. Fireflies danced through small trees. Lanterns lit stone pathways. The once cozy room now stretched on until detail disappeared in the distance. Flowers bobbed in a cool breeze. The musical splash of a fountain broke the almost perfect stillness and the scent of roses perfumed the air. He felt a surge of affection for the TARDIS. She could do the most amazing things. 

"Rose, did you see what she’s done, our beautiful TARDIS?” Rose nodded, not really impressed. “I know what you're thinking, I’ve created some amazing things in my sleep before but this is…fantastic,” the Doctor breathed. “If I do say so myself.” He glanced at Rose. She was giving the room a cursory look. “You know, I don’t like to brag.” She cut her eyes back toward him, shaking her head and smiling. “Generally. As a rule,” he amended and the smile broadened into a grin.

Giving up on convincing her of his humility, he tossed his book onto the desk and arched back, stretching to his full length in his tipping chair. The cat-like behavior allowed him to skim against Rose. She stood straighter and sucked everything in, trying to minimize their contact. Ignoring her discomfort as any proper feline would, he reached his arms over his head. His shirt rode up, exposing a sliver of skin near his beltline. He saw her line of sight dip, skimming down his torso. She was definitely tempted. Sitting forward again, he pushed to his feet and moved the chair to one side, safely out of their way. 

Inhaling deeply, he declared the night air, “Quite refreshing.”

Rose dismissed his creation with a careless shrug. “It’s beautiful, yeah. But you can’t start this again. I thought you were getting better.”

“Well, I was. I am...better. This is the first time since the regeneration. And just look at this place. I wasn’t having a nightmare at all. It’s nothing like before.”

“Maybe not but you can’t keep doing this.”

“I can’t help it if I have PTSD.”

“I looked that up,” she informed him. “It’s nothing like you said. You got the Post Traumatic part alright but the S.D. stands for Stress Disorder not Sleep Decorating.”

“It’s different for Time Lords.”

“Most everything is,” she said, with a touch of impatience. Was he boring her? he wondered as she went on, “Look, Mickey won’t understand about our sleeping together. That it’s just sleeping, I mean. He’ll make all kinds of assumptions.” She leveled a warning stare at him as she added, “And he’ll tell mum and she won’t understand either.”

'That,' the Doctor thought, 'would be the lot of us not understanding, then.' 

Despite the easy explanation he’d given Rose about how and why this was happening, he was equally puzzled by it. He’d made up the sleep disorder. His was the only case in Time Lord History. It certainly wasn’t rational. For a Time Lord, what he was doing with Rose came perilously close to violating the Sixth Law of Intermingling. You never, ever, depended on a member of a lesser species. But he needed Rose beside him when he slept. And the TARDIS and his unconscious mind gave them no choice in the matter. 

Prior to the regeneration, he’d slept in her room. If he fell asleep somewhere else the TARDIS brought her to him, herding her along ever-changing corridors and through amorphous rooms. But she was right. They couldn’t do that now. Not because of Mickey but because everything had changed with this last regeneration. Now, he had a secret he was working up the nerve to share, a secret that would break every single one of Rassilon’s Rules.

It occurred to him quite suddenly that maybe she’d been with Mickey just now in the bath or planning to go to him later. She’d been craving something. Something Mickey would be happy to give her. A bitter rush of jealousy hit, appalling him. He cast it out but frowned over the implications of the dangerous emotion. Why had he invited the boy onboard? 

“Oh-ho, I see. Worried about Mickey, are you? Don’t want your boyfriend to know you visit me in the middle of the night?” 

“He’s not my boyfriend. We broke up ages ago. He’s got a new girl, even. You’d know that if you bothered to listen. And I asked you not to bring him but you would. So don’t talk to me now you’re jealous.”

“Jealous? Me? No, no, no, no...” It occurred to him he'd maybe said 'no' once too often. To compensate, he snorted lightly, puffing her insinuation away. “I’m not jealous. That’s...ridiculous. No, I’m just..." He hesitated. What was he feeling? Or thinking? "I thought maybe the two of you had made up, is all. Traveling through space and time together. Bonding.” He dipped his chin so he could peer at her with fluid brown eyes. He could only hope she was buying his denial. "You know about the bonding...? There's a bond...between travelers." She didn’t seem convinced. Looking away, he rubbed his neck as he added, “And I brought him along ‘cause I thought he could help me look after you. But he’s practically useless.”

“I don’t need looking after.”

That brought his head around in a flash. “Oh, don’t you just. Wandering off on that dead ship? Tangling with Mr. Thick-wit and his friends, ending up manacled to an operating table? Jeopardy friendly, tha’s you. Can’t leave you alone for five minutes.”

“You left me alone for five hours,” she reminded him. Under her breath, she added, “Rushing off to save her.”

“Now, who’s jealous?”

“I’m not.”

“You are.” He grinned. Then, leaning closer, he confided, “I don’t mind,” in a conspiratorial whisper before rocking back onto his heels and adding, “But you needn’t be.”

“I’m not.” Rose insisted, her brow furrowing, “I understand about her being the uncrowned Queen of France and all. I understand why you wanted to be with her. She’s like you, center of everything, beautiful and elegant and…”

“Accomplished,” the Doctor added, helpfully. “Astoundingly quick-witted, artistic, graceful, charming…”

“Yeah, alright,” Rose cut-in crossly, glaring him into silence. 

“Sorry,” he murmured. “You were saying…not even a tiny bit jealous…”

“Okay, I admit I was jealous of Sarah Jane, at first. Because she’s like me and I didn’t fancy being part of your daisy chain of best friends. But…Madame de Pompadour, the one and only…she’s part of history. And what am I…? Just Rose Tyler from the Powell Estates. I know she’s better than me, grander. You can’t help falling in love with someone like her. It’s not like I expected to compete.”

“Compete?” the Doctor coughed, appalled by the word. “Compete?” He gestured wildly, waving his arm in a huge arc as he paced off a few feet of floor before whipping around to confront her. “Oh, sometimes you are so very, very...human.” Said like that it left no doubt; it was definitely an insult.

“Yeah, and you’re not. Stating the obvious are we?”

“There was never, has never been, any competition. It wasn’t here’s a winner.” He pantomimed handing out a trophy. Then spread his hands in a helplessly grasping gesture, frustrated by the limitations of her language. “Either/or. You can’t compare what I had with Reinette to what I have with you. That would be like comparing apples and...and what...? Not oranges. Because then there’s an essential fruitiness in common and you would see that as competition. Who’s the juiciest? Which do you like better, then? The truth is you have nothing in common with Reinette Poisson.”

“Oh, thank you very much. You’ll be calling me a stupid ape again in a minute. Maybe I’m not as smart…or…or accomplished…or beautiful but I’m a woman, at least, in case you haven’t noticed. Human…female…blonde…” His raised challenging brows at the last and she crossed her arms defiantly, declaring, “Blonde enough to be going on with. And I’ve got…”

“Motorbikes,” the Doctor interrupted. “It would be like comparing apples and motorbikes.”

Rose stared at him, open mouthed, breathing heavily. After a slight gathering of her anger, she snapped, “Which one is she then? The apple? Forbidden fruit…all sweet and tempting?”

“Exactly,” the Doctor said with a grin. Proud of her for understanding, he patted her shoulder affectionately. Then, he stilled in that predatory way he had, chin lowered and staring fixedly into her eyes. His hand moved on its own as if reaching for an apple on a branch. “She hangs there not quite out of reach," he said, biting through his words with an almost mad intensity, "Suspended in time, perfect and ripe, ready to be plucked and savored.”

Rose felt sick. He didn’t have to rub it in. She got the picture. Unshed tears made her nose sting. Angry and upset, she bowed her head, hugging herself against the chill of his words. He’d called her a motorbike. A motorbike! Could there be anything less romantic? She bit down hard, grinding her teeth together. She wasn’t going to cry. Not in front of him. 

“And what do I do, then?” she ground out, scooting away from him. “Roar around belching black smoke? That’s me, common, obnoxious…loud.”

“What? No!” The Doctor gaped for a moment and then swiftly sidestepped in front of her, blocking her escape. “No…no, no, no, no! You still don’t get it.” He took her upper arms in his hands and shook her gently. “I thought you had it but you don’t. There’s no belching.” He let go of her and stepped back, tilting his head to consider her as he continued. “You’re finely tuned you are, all sparkling and bright. Motorbikes are fun, exhilarating...dangerous.” He spun away from her, pacing again. “Apples are safe. And…and…what’s the word? Transient! That's it. They're transient. And, of course, yes, I know...they are also nutritious. After a fashion. Lots of fiber. But they’re certainly no banana.”

“Apples aren’t good?”

“Oh, they are,” he corrected over his shoulder with a twinkle in his eye. “They’re very good…but they don’t last, do they? They’re better on the tree, in their proper place, or freshly picked. Some people pop them in cold storage but I think even that ruins the flavor. Tuck an apple away in your pocket for a few weeks and what happens? It goes all mushy. Never get that with motorbikes. They shine and they take you places. Places you’ve never gone before. So fast,” he purred, edging closer in two smooth steps, “so very fast, it takes your breath away.”

“Takes your breath away?” she whispered, almost hopefully.

“Time after time,” he said, right on top of her now. “And a motorbike can last a lifetime. If you care for it properly, change the oil…lubricate the gears…have it mechanically serviced.” He coaxed every ounce of innuendo from his innocent list. Rose looked like she might slap him. But her expression seemed brighter despite her sullen mouth. “They aren’t transient at all…except as they fly by on the motorway, of course.” He frowned over this flaw in his analogy but quickly moved on, “To put it another way,” he said, changing tacks. “An apple a day…”

She couldn’t help smiling, just a little, as she completed the quote, “…keeps the doctor away.”

“There,” he said softly, “You see? One every now and then is lovely. I enjoyed the crisp challenge, the bite. But I couldn’t stomach apples every day. You can have your fill of apples but you can’t have your fill of motorbikes. Go up to any bloke on the street and say, ‘Time to choose. Would you like to spend the next thirty years with this nice juicy apple or…this motorbike?’ Wha’s he gonna say?”

Rose’s smile finally reached her eyes and her posture relaxed. “That you can’t spend thirty years with an apple?”

“Right in one,” he said, brushing stray hair from her brow with his fingertips. “Matter of fact, if he’s already had lunch an apple probably won’t even tempt him. He’s going to say motorbike, every time. Even if he already had three at home he’d take another. Bet it makes his heart beat a little faster, too. Bet he sits around staring at her when he’s nothing else to do.”

Rose wanted to ask if he did that. If he sat around staring at her but she couldn’t get her suddenly dry throat to cooperate. Instead she teased him, wondering even as she spoke where she was getting the nerve. “So, is that why you invited Mickey along to…service me?” 

“Thought he might do, yeah,” the Doctor mumbled. Rose couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed but at the very least he seemed uncomfortable. Loosening his tie with one hand, he slipped around her to lean against the desk. And then quite suddenly, he blurted, “Do you miss it?”

“What? Sleeping with you?”

His eyes became nearly perfectly round and his mouth open ever so slightly as if he’d been startled speechless. Lips moving soundlessly, he tilted his head back. It was almost a come hither since his gaze never left hers. His grin bloomed ever so slowly, dimpling his cheek. He seemed inordinately pleased by the direction of her thoughts. But after a moment of looking pole-axed, he gathered himself together and said, “Ah, yes. No, I was talking about sex. Physical intimacy. Hooking up. Getting off.” For some reason, known only to his subconscious, he pointed toward the door. She sighted along his arm, and then looked back at him, confusion stark on her face.

“’Scuse me?”

Before he could say more, she actually choked on a snigger. It was certainly not the reaction he’d hoped for but he wasn't about to be defeated by it. Heat and so many other deliciously sensual things radiated from her. She was enjoying this, enjoying him and the…the insinuation. The smile stayed on her face, played on her lips, never quite breaking through but never leaving, as her desire hit a crescendo. She shifted a little to study the books on his desk. He saw her taking in the titles, every one about human sexual practices. 

She gave him a smoldering glance, sidelong and slightly veiled by her lashes. His courage faltered. What happened now? What happened next? He cleared his throat, marshalling his thoughts and arguments. She wanted him. He wanted her. Why not get on with it?

“People do…I understand. They...miss it. When they haven’t had it recently. Only natural, really...truly, completely natural. Though, not for Time Lords, of course, we don’t...have those feelings...” His train of thought derailed. During the extended pause, he gave his inanely pointing finger a glare and then swiftly drew the hand back. He raked it through his hair before allowing it to settle at the nape of his neck. “But humans have their...well...all of the biological drives." He let his arm fall to his side. "Survival instinct. Can’t put that sort of thing off. Especially when it’s been some little...time.” His voice lost strength and conviction, trailing away as he asked, “Has it been, then?...some little...time?” 

“You want to talk about my sex life?” Rose asked, sounding cross. She gestured at his books. “What? You’ve been reading up and now you’ve got questions?”

He shot a quick look at the piles of tomes on his desk but shook his head. “Not as such. No. Not general questions.”

“’Cause I can see how The Lesbian Kama Sutra might have given you ideas.”

“I’ve just been getting an overview,” he huffed. “It all seems rather...” he struggled to find just the right word.

“Complicated?”

“No, not really. You’re a simple lot, humans. Interlocking parts, fairly straightforward in the execution but afterward...getting the job done as it were...it seems so...subjective. How does anyone know when they’ve got it right?”

“I guess they don’t. Not really. We do our best and hope. And there are some signs...I can’t believe we’re having this conversation," She groaned. "All you’ve seen. All you know about space and time and other worlds and you have to study up on sex. Never had it yourself?” Seeing him stiffen, she raked a knowing glance up and down him. “Oh, but you haven’t, have you?”

“Don’t be silly. Of course I’ve had sex. Time Lords don’t as a rule. But you can’t live 900 years, traveling through the cosmos, and never have intercourse. There are planets, cultures, where it’s as common as the cold. ‘Good morning’ they say, ‘Care for some bodily fluid exchange and a coffee?’” 

Rose rolled her eyes at this and the Doctor relaxed, slipping easily into his default lecture mode.

“Remember what I told you about Captain Jack? Getting out there and dancing? Fifty-first century humans are particularly open to new experiences. And it's fairly easy to find a willing partner if the mood takes you. Every species is different, of course. Birds. Bees. Trees. Flowering nichtapods. On Azkaphoria Seven they breed by parthenogenesis. But you kick off the process shaking hands. I once impregnated a half-dozen Azkaphorians at a black-tie, Art in Industry reception before someone took me aside to explain.”

“Sounds awkward. All those Azkaphorians seeking child support,” Rose giggled, one hand going to her chest and the other cavorting through the air. “You blippin’ away through time the envy of dead-beat dads everywhere.”

“Historically, though, very Gallifreyan. We did tend to mingle before Rassilon put his xenophobic foot down and had us all…neutralized. Chap called Omega, in particular, had a fetish for Earth maidens. He was forever carting them off in his fiery chariot. Got to be quite a bother for your primitive ancestors. Back in the day, a pretty young girl couldn’t tend her flocks without an escort. Never knew when she’d be visited by bulls or swans or showers of golden rain. And what price the pomegranate? But Omega wasn’t the only one. They say there’s a touch of the Time Lord in every sentient species, somewhere deep in the genetic coding. So you see? It’s not so much I look like you, Rose, as you look like me.” 

“Hang on a minute,” Rose said. “I get the part about Omega, I think. And intermingling Time Lords. You’re saying we’re related way back. It’s like the missing link everyone goes on about and that would explain a lot. But where do the animals come in? Bulls and swans and such?”

“Ah, thought you might wonder. The human term is oneirosperma…the dreaming seed,” he said. “Asclepius, one of your greatest physicians coined the word to explain what had happened to his mother. You know anything about Greek mythology? Oh, Omega was mad for the Greeks. Though, truthfully, oneirosperma is a misnomer because the effect Asclepius documented comes from a neurotoxin we inject during our arousal phase. It’s a sort of hallucinogenic aphrodisiac. Used to keep the female of the species from ripping out our throats while we get on with our procreating. Nothing extraordinary about our seed, other than its genetic adaptability.”

“Oh,” Rose said because she truly couldn’t think of anything else to say. There was only one word echoing in her brain, “Neurotoxin.”

“Anyway,” he sighed, stretching both syllables to their outer limits before quickly popping his 'p' as he rushed on, “Point is we could give it a try. Sex. Pretty sure I could do something for you. I have an approximation of the proper equipment. Close enough to fool the UNIT nurses. But not exactly the same, you understand? There’s a bit of vibration but no penetration involved…not the sort you’ll expect at any rate. Bound to be nothing like you’d expect. On the other hand, could be everything you imagine. All depends on what happens, doesn’t it? Either way…I don’t want you to be disappointed.”

She couldn’t help it. She glanced down at his trouser front as she nodded. Could he honestly not...penetrate?

“Of course, you know something about my body because you dressed me in those jim-jams. It was you, right? Not your mother or Mickey?” She nodded again. Her confirmation set his head bobbing knowingly. She could see his tongue through his open mouth, playing along his teeth. He seemed delighted to learn she’d seen this new body naked. Pressing his lips together, he crossed his arms and took in a long breath through his nose. Then, he thrust both hands into his pockets and settled his bum against the edge of the desk. His thigh brushed hers. He studied her profile via a sidelong stare for a silent moment and then said, “I’ve been meaning to ask about it…oh, for ages now. Why exactly did you take my clothes off?” 

She turned to face him just as he looked around as well and he nearly lost his soul to the timeless depths of her eyes. Her pupils seemed infinite, though he knew they couldn't be. He was falling...falling...

“I was just…uhm…” She blinked, trying to recall her reasons, and broke the spell she'd cast on him.

His brows wiggled. “Curious?”

“You were hurt. I was trying to make you comfortable.”

“Except I was perfectly comfortable in my other clothes. More comfortable in a way. Ever try saving the world without any underwear? Not really recommended for the male of your species, let me tell you. Not at all. Hazardous even. I might have lost more than my hand.”

“I had to take your shoes off, at least, to put you in bed,” she said defensively. Her voice cracked a little as she thought back. Once she’d taken off his shoes, she saw the long length of his bare feet and touched her skin to his. Then, she’d had to see more of him. She’d worked quickly. Afraid he might wake to find her hovering again and be angry.

“I wouldn’t have been angry,” he said.

“Are you reading my mind?” she asked, more intrigued than alarmed.

He blushed and looked away. “Just a little. Can’t be helped, really. Not in these circumstances. All Time Lords are slightly psychic.”

“Like the paper.”

“Like the paper,” he confirmed softly. He pushed away from the desk, pivoting immediately to face her. “Do you mind?” he said, quite seriously as he searched her face. “If I learn things about you? Things you might want to keep private?”

“What sort of things?”

“Anything…everything…what you enjoy? What it feels like when you’re with me…what it felt like with other people or when you were by yourself. When you did things to yourself in private...”

“You mean…when we’re…if we…” She took control of herself and answered his question. “I don't think I mind. But I won't really know until it happens, will I? What if I don't like it...if you’re slightly psychic then you’ll know if you’re..." She stopped speaking, ashamed. She didn't need to ask about the one thing she feared. He wouldn't force her to do anything. He wouldn't hurt her. She approached the whole topic anew. "You'll know if you're doing things right, pleasing me. But you’ll also know if I think of another man or something, yeah?” Despite her ashen cheeks, she lifted her chin a little in defiance. “Course that could help out...help you hit the right spots so it’s not all bad. But people... humans if you like...we like our privacy. You want to know if I got anything to hide because if we...when we’re having sex...you’ll go rummaging around in my mind at the same time and we shouldn't pretend you won't. Is that right?”

“Not rummaging,” the Doctor assured her. “Sensing obliquely, getting a feel for you. Won’t come to rummaging unless…well…unless I lose control.” He rubbed her shoulder but she continued to look pale and chew her bottom lip. “And that probably won’t happen. According to old Rassilon it can't happen, simply, biochemically impossible. Even if we do move forward…to the next level, chances are I won’t become aroused by it…so there’s nothing to worry about…or…hardly anything.”

Not aroused. He wouldn’t be aroused by it. She digested this, thinking it was stupid to expect he would be. Reading her thoughts again he said, “I want to do this. I do. It’s just...different for Time Lords…most everything is, hey?” He grinned at her. “But look at it this way...if I don’t become aroused you won’t have to worry about the neurological link…or the oneirosperma.”

“Tha's good, ‘cause I don’t fancy swans,” she said, meeting his eye. He appeared to be holding in a laugh and that irked her. “No, seriously, I had a traumatic swan experience once. When I was seven, one of them came after me in a park. I ran as fast as I could but he was faster. I nearly got pecked to death.”

“Doesn’t have to be swans,” he murmured, easing a hand between them. "It can be anything...anyone you want."

The ties on her gown hung loose, hardly fastened. His fingers toyed with them a moment, twisting and tugging until the closure gave way. His dark eyes seemed unfathomable, drawing her in as he navigated the layers of fabric. A tremor ran through her when he reached her skin. The back of his hand pushed the gauzy material of her robe aside like a curtain. His fingers glided along her waist, skating around to settle at the small of her back. Only his fingertips touched her, forming the five points of a star over her spine. 

A rush of cool air on her hip brought Rose’s attention straight down to her exposed nakedness. Startled by how swiftly things were moving, she opened her mouth to protest and he kissed her. His free hand drifted up to cup her cheek, tipping her chin so his lips could find the perfect angle. It was a textbook first kiss, slow and sweet and brimming over with tenderness. It turned her insides to hot maple syrup. Her knees started to buckle. She grabbed at his shoulders for stability. His lips held firm against hers, yet were impossibly soft as they gently shifted, teasing her mouth further open. 

Rose heard a ringing in her ears. There was a burning white fire under her skin and someone somewhere was singing. She forgot about being half-naked from the waist down with her private parts tight against an alien. She could feel the crinkled fabric of his suit tickling her bare belly but there seemed to be no point in blushing. In the end this was still the Doctor. He’d be grinning like mad and splashing around with both feet in the new experience. Any show of embarrassment would earn her a disappointed look and a brief lecture on wasting half her life worrying about what people might think. ‘Might as well let go and enjoy it all,’ he’d say. 

So she did, even though it quickly became obvious to her he wasn’t enjoying it as much. Nothing stirred below his waist. He wasn’t aroused. She took it personally despite what he’d said. She drew him in closer, lifting her arms until they could wrap around his neck. She thought about Cosmo quizzes she’d taken and decided to mimic his moves as they often suggested. Her hand caressed his face, slowly, sensually. Then she combed her fingers through his hair until she was gripping the nape of his neck exactly as he was gripping hers. He whimpered when she let her nails bite in and his palm flattened against her spine, yanking her hips into his. 

‘Tha’s more like it,’ Rose thought, wrapping one leg around him as he ground her against the desk top.

But there was still no swell or vibration or anything in his trousers. She might as well be a lesbian at this rate. Was that why he was reading that book? Emboldened by frustration, she tugged his shirt free from the back of his pants and sent her hand up under it. As she molded her palm to the curve of his spine, she touched the tip of her tongue to his. He took her invitation, plunging into her mouth. His tongue moved sinuously, arcing under and around hers. She found, by licking along the length of it, she could make him shudder a bit and then, without any warning at all her mouth was full of Candy Shocks and Coca Cola. 

Choking on the fizz, she shoved him off and broke away. Her eyes watered. Her nose tingled. She scrubbed at both with her fingertips. The room disappeared for a disorienting moment. She swallowed automatically before she thought not to and the strange sparking sensation slid down her throat. Reaching her stomach, it seemed to bounce and spread through her, touching off fireworks in every internal organ. 

“Are you alright?” the Doctor said, sounding not at all himself and yet oddly familiar to her. 

She managed to blink her vision clear. The blackness retreated and the room returned. Deep inside her, the stinging tingle slowly abated, leaving behind a delicious pulse between her legs. It seemed manageable. She turned back to reassure the Doctor only to find he’d been replaced by…well…by the other Doctor. 

“It’s you,” she rasped, staring into his pale blue eyes. 

“Hello, sweetheart,” he said, cheekily.

Then, he hunched his shoulders and smiled madly, gleefully, like he was maybe nine instead of nine hundred and Rose thought her face might split in two from grinning back at him.

 

END THIS PART


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose tries very hard not to think about swans and ends up thinking about the Ninth Doctor. She explores her fantasies while under the influence of the Doctor's "dreaming seed."
> 
> WARNING: One woman, two men, three-way sex. Only, maybe not really.

PART TWO

“But I thought…you were,” Rose began but she couldn’t complete the thought. It was too dreadful to think of him dead. He’d burned. Every cell in his body had burned. Reaching out a tentative hand, she lightly caressed the lapel of his leather jacket and then stepped closer into the ambient warmth he was generating. She ran the flat of her palm over his chest, savoring the span of it. Had he always been so large? She’d grown used to his trimmer figure. “You said you couldn’t change back.”

“Oh, I…I haven’t. Er…he hasn’t,” the Doctor said. Despite his appearance, the starts and stops in his speech made him sound remarkably like his regenerated self. But then he grinned again and slipped into the deeper ‘northern’ accent to proudly announce, “I’m a figment.”

“A fig…?”

“…ment. Of your imagination. Not a swan.”

Rose tipped her head back to squint at him and immediate regretted it. Her skull seemed to be full of marbles. Thousands of glass orbs shifted, banging around inside her head and their combined weight threatened to pull her head off her neck. She pressed the heel of her palm to her temple to stabilize everything. It felt like she’d had six too many at the pub. Her smile became a grimace as the room dipped and swirled around her. For a second or two it was all she could do not to topple over. The Doctor quickly grabbed her around the waist, pulling her hips into his.

‘Now, we’re dancing,’ she thought. 

She never wanted him to let go. He seemed so solid, so real. But she obviously couldn’t believe what her senses were telling her. What she was seeing and feeling was too good to be true. He was definitely aroused now. Definitely male, her Doctor, the first Doctor, the older…or no…he would be the younger Doctor, wouldn’t he? Despite appearances? Anyway, it didn’t matter because it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. He was….gone…and he wasn’t ever coming back. She thought about what had happened and then, keeping a hand on her head to hold it in place, carefully nodded.

“Not a swan. Yeah. I see what this is. This is it, then? The dreaming seed? What you did in my mouth just then was the…your…your,” Her nose wrinkled as she tried to think of an appropriate euphemism and tried not to think of the human equivalent. “…being all aroused? Whadya call it,” she snapped her fingers as she struggled to recall Shareen’s favorite term, “…the…string of pearls? And now, I’ve gone all squiffy and I’m seeing figments.”

“Clever and beautiful,” the blue-eyed Doctor said, caressing her with his rich resonance. He hadn’t let go of her and he smiled as he brushed a hand up her side. She could feel the tips of his blunt, callused fingers, catching on the silken material of her gown. A tiny shiver of delight danced along her skin. She’d dreamed of him touching her like this.

As she shyly glanced up at him, his mouth twisted into a pensive pout and he cast his gaze at the ceiling. “String of pearls?” he sniffed disdainfully. “Not sure I like that…pearls…?” He gave a tiny shake of his head. “No, not very much. That,” he said, looking back at her, “was the injection phase of arousal, my cnidocytes going off.”

“Oh, that’s just odd,” Rose giggled. “Your face and his voice. But are you him doing the voice or are you just you looking like him?" She clutched at her hair. "Gaw, I think I’ve given myself a paradox headache.” 

“I’m him. Me. I haven’t changed back. You’re seeing things…feeling things…well…experiencing things, really, that aren’t here. Guess I am rather...potent.”

She ducked her chin and giggled again. It all seemed so very funny. “And I’m definitely plastered. Have you considered marketing this stuff to the pharmaceutical people? You’d make a fortune.”

“Feeling no pain?” he surmised, sounding like he once had, oh, so long ago. He still had that comical face with the oversized ears. And there was a touch of indulgent good humor behind his words. “That’s the aphrodisiac part. Makes sure you’re happy. Gallifreyan females can get a little rough.”

Rose tried to clear the fog from her head and concentrate. “Look, how can I be hallucinating?” She frowned, trying to reason it out. “You don’t…this doesn’t just look like him.” She jabbed the Doctor with a finger and he bobbed a bit in response, his brows lifting with mild amusement. “You’re exactly the same. The voice and everything.” Snuggling into his chest, she wrapped both arms around his waist and squeezed. “It’s amazing. It feels so real.” 

“Bound to feel real,” he said. “Comes straight from your sense memory. I got the hook up.”

Feeling clever for using a slang phrase, he snickered. Rose stepped back and slapped playfully at his shoulder. And he changed. Not physically but in some indefinable way becoming the Doctor she’d started this evening with. 

“He’s your surrogate…the penetrator. Though why…given a universe of choices…you would choose him I’m sure I’ll never….” 

He went through another mercurial switch and his voice matched his appearance again. She had to come up with something to call them, they were both the Doctor. 

“The Penetrator,” her first Doctor said, with a boyish smirk. “I love it.” He brushed a few stray hairs from her brow as he told her, “You can call me that if you’d like. ‘Cause I’d answer.” 

“Oh, shut up,” he told himself.

“The thing is Rose,” he went on, not taking his own advice. “You rely on your five little senses for so much input. We can use them to advantage. Stimulate them to remember how I was in life. How certain things felt. Once I access your nervous system I can compile the sense memory of other experiences you’ve had. Can’t have you unsatisfied. So I look and feel solid.”

“But that’s….” She wanted to say, it was impossible or not really what she wanted.

But instead she smiled when he completed the thought for her by saying, “Fantastic?”

“Yeah, I guess it is…a little…”

She shivered as his hands, those strong, capable hands, glided along the outside of her arms. He followed her curves, tracing the bow of her neck until he was cradling her face between his palms. His thumb tugged at her lower lip. She gazed up at him, feeling nothing but trust. When she smiled, he groaned and tightened his grip, fingertips combing great chunks of her hair free. And she gave in, melting into him for a long, slow kiss. When their lips parted, she drew in a deep breath and then sighed. 

“Mmmm!” she murmured, happily, eyes still closed. “It even smells like you.” 

“Smells like…? Smells?” the Doctor exclaimed in a note perfect imitation of his trimmer, dark-eyed self. 

Rose jerked out of her daze. Her eyes popped open as she stumbled backward. Her foot caught in the hem of her gown. She was red-faced and a little ashamed. It felt just like she’d been caught cheating. “Oh, you’re still…”

“Oh, yes, still here,” he said, over enunciating the way he generally did when holding onto his temper. “Listening to this…drivel.” He seized her arms just above the elbows and pushed, forcing her backwards. She grabbed at his coat, and then gave a tiny shriek of dismay as one Doctor became two. He separated from himself, pulling apart like an amoeba. The dark-eyed one had a firm grip on her elbows. And he pushed her out to arm’s length. The older…younger…bigger…oh, this was confusing…the first one she’d ever met, leaned against the desk edge while the slender one used his momentum to waltz her a few steps away. 

Doctor number two seemed genuinely upset. His face twisted with comic fury as he gave her a gentle shake. “Whaddya mean, it smells like him?” He demanded. 

“This isn’t going to work if I can’t even kiss her,” the shorthaired one remarked in a sensual drawl. He glanced at Rose. “Is he always this wound up or is it just the sex?”

“Are you saying he smells better than me? Manlier maybe? With his strong, capable hands?”

“He gets on these tears,” Rose told her first Doctor. Then she patiently addressed the one holding onto her. “You used to get dirty, oily, working on the TARDIS. He has that hot engine smell. And you smell like hair gel and… Hang on. I don’t see what you’re upset about if he’s you. You’re him. You’re the same person.” She frowned over the puzzle until another thought hit her. “And how do you know what I was thinking about his hands?” 

“Hair gel?” the older Doctor chortled. 

“Some of us have hair. And what am I, then?” He asked Rose. “If he’s strong and capable? I’m…what? Scrawny? Feeble? Effete…inept?” 

“It’s not fair you taking my thoughts out of context.” Rose countered. “Especially when you said you weren’t going to rummage around in my mind.”

“Unless I was aroused.”

“So you’re aroused now?”

“Just a bit, yeah,” he said in a tone that made it seem much more than a bit.

“Oh," Rose looked away. "I was happy to see him, is all. I thought it would be safe to think about him. Better than swans.”

“But you could have had…what? Who?" He released her suddenly, turning away to pace the room. "A…a…plethora…a virtually unlimited smorgasbord of men…Alexander the Great, or alright if you can’t imagine Alexander…then what about that Colin Firth fellow…or…or Elvis…Hugh Jackman…Joey Lawrence…Laurence Olivier…Brad Pitt…?” He sputtered to a pause.

“Look, you can’t be jealous of yourself,” Rose reasoned.

“Oh, but I can,” the short-haired one remarked. “It’s a sort of...talent.”

Even as his more animated self went on in a higher register. “I thought maybe…possibly Jack Harkness or even Mickey. I was braced for Mickey…but no you have to go for the retro look.” He pointed a finger at his counterpart. That Doctor waved. “Big ears. Hooked beak. Beady pale eyes. You can’t tell me you find that attractive.”

“It’s Colin Farrell played Alexander,” Rose said, calmly. “Colin Firth is _Pride & Prejudice._”

He let his arm fall to his side as he gaped at her. Rose had a hard time holding in the urge to giggle. She told herself it was the drug. This entire muddle stemmed from her reckless use of alien aphrodisiacs. She should have listened to the warnings in school and stayed off the hard stuff.

“We’re not here to talk about who butchered which films,” the Doctor said. “Truth is you’ve always had a soft spot for my former self...wanting me to change back…’oh, can you?’” he said, snidely imitating her. His eyes got very round and wide. “No! No, I can’t. And why should I?”

“She fancies me, our Rose,” her first Doctor said smugly. “Always did like me better. And who can blame her?”

”Me! I can blame her,” the second Doctor said, touching his fingertips to his chest. He shot a smoldering glare at Rose. “This body was specifically designed to please you. Did you know? Did you give it any thought? The accent. The trim figure. The smile. Hair you could run your fingers through. Someone younger…sexier…more fun at parties. I’m even...almost, yes, very nearly domestic," he said, practically spitting the cursed word. "Everything you asked for…everything I…” He broke off with a sigh as she stared at him in confusion. “Oh, never mind,” he said, petulantly.

“It’s not as if she remembers what happened at Satellite Five,” the first Doctor said with what seemed to Rose to be exaggerated patience. “And you’re shattering the mood.”

The second one seemed to take this in. He shot a pleading glance at Rose but then jammed both hands into his pockets and slumped. His sullen mouth looked very kissable. After a brief sulk, he took note of Rose still warily watching him and gave a terse nod. Blowing off the rest of his temper, he shuffled over to his fellow self and leaned against the desk beside him. They mirrored one another's stance, arms folded and ankles crossed.

“I just thought I had it right for once,” the trimmer one said in a conversational tone. “I’m better looking…better dressed…a better conversationalist…honestly, check out these teeth.” He flashed a grimacing smile. “I’m six times more sociable than you.” He looked down at his feet, studying his trainers a few moments before adding, “And I’m a better dancer.”

“Well, cheer up,” the first Doctor said, bumping their shoulders together. “She probably hasn’t had a good look at you yet.” His smile widened to an infectious grin that brought Rose in on the joke as he added, “Must be hard to see anything properly what with your huge ego blocking out the sun.” His grin vanished, turned off at the switch by a sobering thought. “Listen, luv! You’d best stop referring to us as first and second,” he told Rose, “Even in your mind. Could lead to all sorts of aggravation.”

“I don’t…”

“You see there really are other Doctors, a first and a second. But we’re not them. I’m the ninth and the ego-weasel here is the tenth. You can refer to us by number if you like: Nine and Ten.”

“But…” Rose began.

“He’s right,” the other Doctor sighed, also meeting Rose’s eye earnestly. “The last thing we want is to have any more of me showing up. Get my first and second selves in here and we’ll never get things started.”

“But…it’s my hallucination,” Rose reasoned. “I can’t imagine people I don’t even know.”

“We’re all sharing,” the second…tenth Doctor said. “I’m in your mind. My other selves are in my mind. You could access my memory of them. Best not risk it. He’s Nine. I’m Ten. Should be easy to remember,” he went on looking suddenly happier. “After all…Ten is the highest standard. The heart of your mathematical system. Base Ten. Top Ten. Perfect Ten.”

The first…older…ninth Doctor snorted. "Ten? What’s that?” He sneered. “Simple, tha's what! Counting on your fingers and toes? Multiply it by anything…add a zero and you're done.” He winked at Rose. “But Nine. Nine's got character, depth...personality. It's three times three," he said, gesturing broadly like a magician conjuring. "And three's a powerful number. Three Fates. Three wishes. Third time's the charm.”

Ten made a rude noise. “Three strikes and you’re out. Or here’s one…three’s a crowd.”

Nine wisely went on without engaging himself in debate, "Triumvirate. The trinity. In your multiplication tables the Nines are as easy to learn as the Tens but subtler. Two times nine is eighteen. Three times nine is twenty-seven. Four times...? Thirty-six. See the lovely pattern? One, two, three...counting up...and eight, seven, six...counting down. So what's next? Five times nine is four going up...and five...coming down..." 

"Forty-five," Rose said, delighted and slightly surprised she'd never noticed this herself. 

"And, they all add up to Nine, too. Eighteen? One and eight is nine. Thirty-six? Three and six is...Nine." 

"Four and five is nine," Rose agreed. "Then five and four, again, for fifty-four." She bounced over to him all smiles and warmth and said, "Oh, I do love having you here again." 

He uncrossed his arms and reached out to softly caress her cheek. "I've always been here, sweetheart," he said. His gaze seemed to be full of fire as he stared down at her. And then before she could draw another breath, he was gone. He winked out of existence and the bubble of happiness in her chest popped. 

“What about eleven?” Ten asked the air. “Nine times eleven is ninety-nine. Doesn’t go up. Doesn’t go down. And it adds to eighteen. Not nine."

“Yeah,” Rose said sadly. Head drooping low, she retied the strings of her dressing gown, cinching them so fiercely the Doctor was sure she was shutting him out. “So...it’s not a real pattern.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said in a small contrite voice. He felt like a heel for spoiling her fun. “Maybe there are two patterns.” Rose could feel him watching her and made an effort to meet his eye but her smile was wan. They stared into the middle distance, both thinking of what was lost. Rose sighed. After a moment, he scooped her closer with one arm. “I didn’t mean to shatter the mood,” he murmured.

She shrugged her shoulders and snuggled into him, molding her curves to his. They fit perfectly together, no straining to reach. He rubbed his cheek along the silken mass of her hair. A hair clip scratched him and he took a moment to remove it and two others, releasing the last restraint on her tresses. As hair spilled around her face, he nuzzled lower until he found her ear. His hot breath sent shivers through her.

“We can bring him back,” he whispered. 

Her lungs burned, refusing to draw breath for a few seconds. She was clinging to him like a drowning woman. He didn’t seem to mind. They shifted until they were comfortably wrapped around each other. Nearly a minute passed before either of them spoke.

Finally, Rose whispered back, “I don’t like him best.”

“You don’t?”

Instead of repeating herself, she leaned away carefully, so as not to break any more contact than she had to, and studied him. “Did you really regenerate to this…for me?”

Avoiding her questioning gaze, Ten sighed. “Well,” he drawled, trying to sound offhand. “I wanted you to like the new look but it was a long shot really. Never did get the hang of controlled regeneration.” He glanced down at her, finding and holding her gaze as his hand slipped between them. He interlaced their fingers. “Guess I cocked it up, hey? And I so wanted to be ginger." 

Rose saw the lines of his face fall into resignation. She tried to find some context for this very odd situation. But it all left her a little off-kilter. She’d hurt the Doctor’s feelings by expressing a careless enthusiasm for his other self. In a way, this surprised her more than any of the other gob-smacking things she’d experienced in the last thirty minutes. This wasn’t like him. He wasn’t generally hyper-sensitive. He tended to be cocky to the point of egomania. She'd never seen him look quite so crestfallen.

“I like the brown,” she said, softly. The tip of her tongue darted out to moisten her lips as she pretended to consider him. “You did well enough, yeah? You’re very handsome. Trim and… What’s the word…?” She scratched her head with her free hand. “Sleek, I think. Slinky.”

“Slinky?” he repeated. His eyes grew very round as his mouth toyed silently with the word, “Slinky?” He let go of her hand, almost flinging it away as he pushed off the desk edge. “You mean like a…like a lizard…or…or a snake?” He wrinkled his nose. “A serpent? A…a stoat? What did that old lummox call me?” He pointed to where his former self had been. “I’m a…a weasel?”

“An ego-weasel,” Rose corrected, primly. She had to press her lips together to avoid laughing. Taking a quick breath she rushed out, "He called you 'the ego-weasel.'"

“Right…,” he said, showing her the whites of his eyes, “Right…thank you.” 

Taken aback by the concept, he looked so adorably aghast Rose couldn’t help laughing. When he tilted his head, his resemblance to some small woodland creature was uncanny. A burble of mirth forced its way through her firmly closed lips. Her eyes shone merrily. She tried to stifle the giggles but failed. In a paroxysm of glee she managed to gasp, “No. No, but you’re not. I didn’t mean…”

“Oh, yes,” he said, bobbing his head and regarding her with wide-eyed indignation. “I think you did mean exactly that. You agree with him. You think I’m pointy-nosed…and…button-eyed…and…and sharp-toothed. And who finds that attractive?” He scrubbed his fingers through his hair, standing it all on end. “Other weasels maybe.” 

“You’re not a weasel,” she insisted, following him as he crossed to the bed and threw himself dejectedly across the foot of it; face up so he could stare at the stars. “Really you’re not. You don’t look anything like a weasel.”

“Oh, don’t I?” he said, challenging her with his dazzling intellect. “Have you studied me closely?”

Biting her lip, Rose fought for composure as she stared down at him. She couldn’t help but take his implied invitation to admire him. He had fallen into complete disarray, shirt riding up, suit jacked flared and hair wildly tufted. He looked incredibly scrumptious. She counted to ten, closing her eyes as she sank down on the very edge of the mattress. She was having trouble drawing breath this close to him. And she’d been giggling so much. Pressing a hand to her chest, she tried to gather her wits but he was still on his tear and she really couldn’t seem to control her snickering. 

“Go on…admit it…I’m…weasel-y,” he said. “Weasel-ish.” Rose nearly got herself under control but unfortunately just when she thought it was safe to speak he added, “Weasel-esque.” And she convulsed with mirth again. Tightening his stomach muscles, he curled up off the bed a bit to regard her as she continued to sputter. “Weasel…like,” he finished and slumped back into the supine.

“Stop it,” she panted, leaning back on an elbow to prod him.

“Weasel-,” he began but broke off because she’d lunged at him, grabbing his jacket front. She twisted the fabric, exposing even more of his midsection. He was so lean. She could see the jut of his hips and there was a dark line of hair on his pale skin. He had hair on his chest. She remembered it feeling impossibly soft against her knuckles as she’d buttoned him into pajamas. 

“There are no weasels,” she declared. “You’re more like…I don’t know a fox or something…maybe a whadyacallit…an otter, yeah?”

“An otter?” he coughed. Curling his lip back he puffed in derision, “Pff? Wha’s that…? I’ll tell you what…a wet weasel.” Groaning theatrically, Rose dropped her head to his chest in mock despair. He put both arms around her. “Oh, yes, tha’s a comfort…that is. I can hold my head up now. There’s a big difference…not a weasel but an otter.”

“Otters are good,” Rose mumbled into his tie. “They’re nothing like weasels.” Then she lifted her chin a little, sparkling eyes meeting his equally glittering gaze. “At least, I don’t think they are. Are they? They’re opposites aren’t they? Like in Redwall. Anyway, otters are cute.”

“Cute?” he sounded appalled but he was relaxing beneath her, stretching out and at ease. “Am I cute?”

“Sexy cute,” Rose assured him. “Not cuddly cute. Otters are dead sexy. Did you never read Redwall?” He pursed his lips and shook his head. “You’re like Tagg taking up the sword of Martin.” She flourished an arm as if fencing. “I had such a crush on Deyna when I was a little girl.” Dropping her hand back onto his chest, she regarded him narrowly. “And you know what this reminds me of? When I was eight or nine and had my front teeth come in, Mickey went around telling everyone I had a hamster head.” 

“Did he really?” The Doctor asked in amazement. “There’s a bit of nerve.”

“Yeah, he went on for years, teasing me. Said I had hamster cheeks full of seeds and such. Used to call me Penfold. Drove me mad.” She smiled shyly, ducking her chin as she scooted her hips backward and brought her legs onto the bed. When she’d finished squirming, she was lying along his body. Nose to nose she said, “And don’t we sound like something they’d read aloud at library story-time?”

“Hamster and Weasel Are Friends,” the Doctor declared, beaming.

“Hamster and Otter,” she corrected, her lips brushing over his, “Are Very Close Friends.”

“Oh, Penfold, we’re going to get banned from the schools,” he said, gleefully.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rose knew a bit about sex. Not that she was skanky or anything. She wasn’t one of those girls who let everyone take a turn but she knew what was what. She’d heard stuff around and tried a few things out. She read CSI fanfiction online, even the Lady Heather ones. And took the “Are You Good in Bed?” and “How to Tell What He Wants” quizzes in her mother’s magazines. And whenever something new came up she always talked it over with Shareen. But mostly, she was an ordinary girl who knew ordinary blokes. 

She’d started officially dating at fifteen and since then she’d only had three grown up boyfriends. Four if you counted the Doctor. And there really wasn’t any way she couldn’t count the Doctor now. Nothing in her limited experience had prepared her for him, for this. It was beyond good. 

She’d had no idea kissing could bring on so many delicious sensations. Something wet and warm tugged at her core. She almost came as it coiled in her belly. Moaning, she clenched tight, squeezing her thighs together. Crested waves of longing broke over her, splashing across her skin. She didn’t see how it was possible to feel this way. Not from kissing. But, oh, god her Doctor could kiss. He had a way with his tongue that put every other man to shame. Not just the men she’d kissed but all the ones she might have. She didn’t need to kiss them all to know she’d found the best. He let everything build slowly, banking all her fires. 

For the longest time he made complex passes at her mouth, a series of light strokes with his lips like a fly fisherman casting. He teased with the flick of his tongue, hoping for a strike. His fingers curled through her hair and skimmed over her skin and he spoke, very softly. In a language she didn’t understand. She strained to catch each susurration, imaging she might work out meaning if she listened closely.

He kept catching her breath in his mouth, warming it and returning it to her. Every time his tongue touched hers, heat pulsed in jagged lightening strikes to her most intimate places. He’d kicked off his trainers and his bare feet caressed her, toes to knees. He’d gotten through her robe again so they were skin to skin. But he held her loosely. Only now and then did he plunge deep as if determined to dive all the way to her center. There was no rhythm to these sensual onslaughts, no reason and no way to prepare. The shift happened suddenly. 

In an instant, he’d turn desperate, clinging, clawing as he dragged her tight into him. He would hold on until she started shuddering. Kiss her until they were forced to break and gasp. Every time he took her hard, every time he ground against her, he drove her to the very brink of an earth-shattering release. She would twist and writhe, running her hands up under his shirt as she slid down the emotional embankment. 

But he never let her fall. He would catch her, a millisecond before she could tumble into bliss. He would pull out, pull away, watching her warily as she recovered. Then, lightly tracing her lips with the very tip of his tongue, he would shyly explore until her blood dropped off the boil. He never let her cool down, though. He licked her, slurping along her throat like she was made of melting ice cream. It hardened her nipples. He savored her, courting her mouth, shamelessly flattering it with his alien words. Her thighs started trembling. She couldn’t make them stop. She needed more. She needed him inside. 

“Oh, yes,” he agreed, the growl of the first syllable fading into an extended hiss with the second. 

Rose didn’t mind him reading her mind this time. She groaned in relief when he seized her, pushing her to her back and flowing over on top of her. Rocking, they found equilibrium. She arched, shifting his weight. He was straddling her hips, which felt wrong. She wanted to wrap around him. Her fingers tugged ineffectually at his clothing. She needed to touch him, feel the muscles bunching and sliding under his skin. 

His eyes burned bright as he reared up for a moment. He seemed to be holding himself in check, fighting against a strong current. He stared at her, head turning away as his gaze remained fixed, locked on her face. His lips curled back exposing sharp teeth. His breath came in ragged pants. His jaw clenched. The look in his eye, his half-panicked expression, made her ache with desire. This was Time Lord Arousal, majestically aggressive. God-like, she supposed. She recognized it on some genetic level and part of her quaked like some Grecian virgin caught out alone in the fields. 

But he was still her Doctor. “Come on, then,” she said, only slightly impaired by the tremor in her voice. “I can take it.”

He laughed, a throaty, wicked sound, and swooped down on her. Rose felt the tiny punctures this time, one after the other. A hundred cellular size needles striking in the wake of his tongue as he swept it up her neck. The toxin burned briefly before spreading its honeyed heaviness to her chest and along her limbs. She had no choice but to surrender. The Doctor slipped into her. Into her mind. Into her body. She urged him closer, holding onto him with her arms, her legs and her awareness. 

A sweet pressure built where she needed it. The full feeling increased, stretching her open. She grew slick yielding to it. It felt solid, warm, like his flesh. She tightened around the sensation and the Doctor groaned. His eyes were blue again, his voice deeper as he said her name. When had he changed? Lost his clothes? She couldn’t remember and didn’t really care. She brought her knees up locking her ankles at the small of his back and held onto his bare shoulders, burying her nose in the curve of his neck. The illusion of the thick shaft within her abated a little. He seemed to withdraw and then returned with a sliding thrust, going impossibly deep. There was no pain, just languid pleasure. It was slow and sweet and oh, so hot. Rose rocked her hips, silently encouraging him to find her rhythm. 

He spoke in her head. “It’s a samba,” he said with characteristic delight. Brown eyes sparkling, he smiled at her as he performed a Latin dancer’s shimmy, somehow hitting every one of her nerve endings perfectly. 

Enslaved by her body's responses, Rose had no thought to spare for the randomness of her mental images. The Doctor kept shifting form. He couldn’t seem to settle on one but she didn’t care. What he looked like hardly mattered. He was her Doctor. She wanted to focus on the physical, what he was doing to her and how good it felt. She didn’t care which one of them touched her. She wanted both of him, all of him. She would never get enough of this, enough of him. No sooner did she have the thought than they were both with her, not mentally but physically. Nine stroking deep between her legs. Ten behind her. Both of them inside her. It felt amazing, nothing like she would have imagined a second or so earlier. 

But it sent her mind skittering down a dark alley. She was suddenly self-conscious, quite sure what they were doing now would qualify her as skanky. Good girls didn’t do this sort of thing. Fear washed through her and she felt the first hint of discomfort, a ghostly claustrophobia. This should hurt. It didn’t but it should. At least, she’d assumed it would when she’d first learned people did such things. She’d never done anything remotely like this, wouldn’t dream of it. Did he think she had? Surely, he knew she had never let two men, let any man... This couldn’t be one of her sense memories. Somehow he was making her feel things she’d never felt before. And what if someone found out? What if people knew she’d let him…? Was this what happened to those poor Greek girls with the bears and the bulls and…?

“Don’t think about swans,” Ten cautioned, husky and low and straight into her ear. She could feel his naked body pressed against her back, his arms encircling her. It all seemed so real. “Or your mother,” he went on, “Or him, whoever he is. Honestly, who is he?” 

She tried to delete the shaming image from her mind instead of answering him. But it was impossible to avoid telling him anything. Her sense of claustrophobia increased when he said, “The produce man? Not your mother’s produce man? You don’t want him to find out about this? But why should he? Oh…oh…right,” he breathed. “This is like the elephant paradox isn’t it? Where I tell you not to think about elephants and the first thing that comes to mind is…oh, wait...no...no, don’t think about elephants.”

“Will you shut up?” Nine growled. 

"Trying to remember your moves? Lucky for Rose at least one of us can multitask. Walk and chew gum at the same time. Resonate concrete while tossing around double entendres about dancing. It's just a matter of setting your priorities." 

“Does he go on like this 24/7?” Nine asked. “Jus’ nattering away?” Rose nodded absently, still overset by what they were doing to her. It felt fantastic but she wanted it to stop. And yet, she didn’t allow the thought to form in her mind. “It's a wonder you haven't gone mad,” Nine panted, his head hanging low as he rocked into her hips. “You have my permission to murder him if you like.” 

“He’s…it’s…not so bad,” Rose managed. Her heart was pounding so loud she was sure he could hear it. She didn’t want this to be shameful, something she’d regret.

Nine glanced at his other self. “Some of us are trying to concentrate on Rose.”

"Some of us need to concentrate more than others," Ten said, smugly.

“Can’t you see she’s upset?” Nine murmured, not inside her head but outside. Ten snarled that, of course, he could and they both moved away from her mind, giving her a little space. “It’s alright, luv,” Nine said. “Let it go. Nobody will find out about this…about us…it’s not even happening, is it? It’s all in your mind. I promise…you have complete control…”

She tried to assert it. All three of them shifted at her command, as if their bodies belonged to her, too. Both Doctors hit the right spot at the same time, one of them sinking into her the other pulling back. And suddenly Rose was rocked by the most astounding orgasm. It blinded her, deafened her. Shattered her into breathless fragments. Tensing like a drawn bow, she wailed through the dizzying rush. Nothing about it hurt or shamed her. It just seemed right being full of him as she spiraled into nothingness. The long fall ended in a series of jerking spasms. 

“…just think about us…”

“Me…,” Ten said and then sighed as she did. “Oh…yes…tha’s better.”

One Doctor vanished but the other one was still there, holding her cradled in his arms when she came crashing back into her body. She could see again. Hear. Feel him solidly next to her in the bed. They were both still dressed, though very disheveled. Just like he’d told her, it had all been in her mind. At some point, he had taken off his shoes and his tie and opened his suit jacket. His shirt was wrinkled and partially unbuttoned, loose at the bottom. Her robe was untied and untidy, a tangle of cloth barely covering her. Gulping air, she tilted her head back to study his face.

He stared at her, awed, his lips slightly parted. An angelic smile teased at the corners of his mouth. His face seemed lit from within. It glowed from the pleasure he’d just shared with her. He took a long shuddering breath and then another.

“Well…I can see why old Omega was addicted to this,” he finally managed to say. “It’s like a roller-coaster and...too much wine and...falling in love all at the same time.” He shifted her into the crook of his arm and, beaming down at her, shyly asked, “Do you wanna go again?”

 

END THIS PART


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This part takes place just before Age of Steel in S2 of New Doctor Who. Those of you who have seen that episode will recognize the final scene in this part. Rose acts rashly and ends up taking too great a hit off the Doctor.

PART THREE

 

Rose only used nine of her full complement of twenty-six senses. Which the Doctor knew put her ahead of her contemporary humans by four or five. Traveling with him had reawakened her instinctive understanding of time and place as well as her latent clairvoyance. Still compared to his fifty or so senses she was practically senseless. And he longed to throw open the existential doors blocking her from comprehending all she was capable of experiencing. Most of all he wanted to enter one door at the far end of her consciousness. It glowed as bright as the sun. It called to him because he had no counterpart in his own mind. 

Behind that door, safely locked away from her living memory, was the thing he had no name for but had once witnessed. The Doctor suspected, if he ever released the locks on this glowing door they would have sure and certain knowledge of Rose’s connection to all things. No other being he knew of had such knowledge. But then, no one could control the Time Vortex. Every Time Lord learned this simple truth. Or burned. 

“But I can,” she’d said with the simplicity of a child. And she had.

She was a creator, his Rose, a bringer of life and death. He loved her for many things, not just for the core of power within her. But her capacity for compassionate destruction left him slightly in awe. She was like his TARDIS in a way, always a bit beyond his understanding. No, he wouldn’t open her doors on a whim. He wouldn’t dare. 

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

“Don’t you know?” he replied. 

Spilling away from her, he stretched. As smugly self-satisifed as any otter, he sank into their soft nest of pillows before pulling her closer. She was nude now and unabashed. Her satin smooth skin enchanted him. He brushed his fingertips up and down her spine.

“I think it’s worn off…the knowing. And anyway, you didn’t really let me in.”

She pushed up onto her elbow, hair cascading across her face as she regarded him. Impatient with the blinding curtain, she pushed the blonde mass out of her eyes. He cupped her cheek with his palm. Physically, he’d given her more than any human male would ever give her. He’d given her complete satisfaction. But he could still sense a longing in her. 

“What?” he asked. 

“Is this what your people do?”

He didn’t know what to say. His knowing hadn’t worn off. At the tips of his fingers, her mind was an open book to him, a graphic swirl of often conflicting passions. She could be wanton and straightlaced at the same time. Currently, she was sated and yet, unfulfilled. She wanted him to have his own experience, not just an echo of hers. The need to touch him at his very core was enough to make her reckless. She wanted to please him, pleasure him like one of his own kind. But he couldn’t allow it. No Gallifreyan had experienced sexual union in eons. Even if consummation were theoretically possible the dangers outweighed any other consideration. He couldn’t let her have her way.

“Something like…yes,” he said, carefully. He didn’t want to lie to her. Ever. But certainly not when she was bare to him, so fragile and so very dear. “During my lifetime, my people didn’t have intercourse as such. Hadn’t had it in…oh….” He frowned a little, pursing his lips as he considered how long it had been. “Hundreds of thousands of years.”

“That’s a long time.” She grinned at him, taking his hand in hers and drawing it away from her face. “Nobody ever fell in love?”

“Time Lords don’t fall in love,” he said. Then, darting a glance at her he added, “As a rule.”

“Hmmm,” she said, softly as she gently placed a kiss in his palm.

“We’re far too high minded.”

“Are you?” She didn’t sound like she believed him. In fact, she sounded smug. 

The Doctor reflected on the wild arrogance of primitives as he cocked a brow at her, daring her to say anything more. She ducked her chin a little and smiled enigmatically. Chuckling, he yanked her to him, hugging her fiercely to his chest. She yielded, collapsing into his arms and molding her soft curves around his hard lines. Curling up like a kitten, she pillowed her head on his shoulder. 

“Among my people conjugal union was considered...unwise,” he continued when she failed to say anything further to bait him. “It led to derision, clannish division. I was genetically engineered. So were my parents and my children. On Gallifrey our bloodlines were scientifically selected. Our offspring encoded and crafted in a laboratory. The ability to procreate naturally was…lost. Legend says, taken from us. A long, long time ago.”

Rose thought about this for a bit, absently tracing a finger under his shirt, circling through the smattering of unbelievably soft hair on his chest. He’d mentioned children before, in passing. But this was the first time he’d spoken of his birth or his parents. She wanted to know more.

The Doctor could feel the cnidocytes in his skin coiling to strike. They drew taut in response to her touch. The tightness in his chest made it very hard to breathe freely. He ached to fire into her, take her again. Take her over and over. He seemed to be insatiable when it came to Rose. Lust, he thought, the base desire. He could deal with lust, keep it in check. But this effervescence in his blood, this bone-melting and mind-scrambling emotion? Love. How could he deal with loving her? How did anyone deal with love? Even as the question formed in his mind he answered it...poetry and war. That was the Time Lord answer. 

But there was also true union. 

People consumated. People married. People mated. 

He wanted to be that man on the street corner, hailing her a cab. He wanted to let her inside his mind. Would it be so wrong? Arousal and sexual fulfillment were delightful sensations. He could only imagine what consummation would be like. Rose longed to take the final step and so did he. Yet his cultural stricture against seeking a soul mate went so deep he grew nervous even contemplating it. And she was human. She might not survive the psychic onslaught.

“You seem to know what’s what,” she said several minutes later.

He took a deep breath and then spoke in an offhand way. “Well...I’ve done a lot of reading,” he said. Toying with a strand of her hair, he thought about what he might tell her. “Do you know how my...penetration let’s you see things? Feel things? How I share in it?” She nodded, tilting her neck so she could see him. “When we share what we feel…we’re coming very close to consummation. If what I’ve read is accurate my people didn’t just exchange bodily fluids during intercourse. We exchanged…information. Under the influence of the injected aphrodisiac, our females had visions and those visions guided both partners to a deeper spiritual knowledge.”

Now she did look worried. “But, I didn’t have visions. Not exactly. I just saw you, felt you.”

“You’re human. You’re not physically capable of…mating with a Time Lord. I need to control my responses. I can’t let go, Rose. The risk of injuring you is too great. Where you’re touching me?” He glanced down at her hand, resting under his shirt. “On my chest and neck? My entire torso really…is covered in cnidocytes. If I...when I release them...they'll connect our nervous systems. It frees my mind and lets me experience what you experience. But the toxin is so potent. I can easily inject eight to ten times the dose you’ve already had.” As he spoke several sharp points hit her bare arm. 

She jerked back. “Oh, unfair,” she yelped but he only laughed and pounced. They rolled across the bed, tussling for a mutually satisfying position.

“You have no idea how good this feels,” he murmured, once he had her pinned and content beneath him. “Even such a tiny release. Being in your mind. I adore it.” He kissed her tenderly and then said, “It’s enough for me, truly.” He caught her gaze. “It’s more than I ever hoped to have.” Then, he bit lightly along her extended neck, sucking at her skin until she moaned in delight. By the time she started kissing him back with a wild abandon, he'd managed to convince himself there was no reason to worry about her stubborn streak.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Breaking through his barriers should have been impossible. And it nearly was. He had her under his command. And he was savoring every nuance of her reactions. She could feel him in her mind as she neared another climax. Her body obeyed him. He played it like a musical instrument. It quavered. Singing for him as it endured sublime, impossibly extended sensations. 

But Rose wasn’t satisfied. Determined to end their one-sided love-making, she managed to untangle a small portion of her mind from the Doctor’s. Focusing solely on her desire to touch him, she slid around his awareness, fluidly, like she was swimming in warm water. She found her own hand and moved it over his. Surprised, he pulled back a little and she gained more independence. Her illusionary Doctor vanished and she was able to sense reality. 

The room swam into focus. She could feel the bed beneath her, the cool air on her bare skin. The Doctor was lying next to her. She gathered her strength and rolled until she could straddle him. When she pressed up the room faded to black for a moment. She clawed into his chest and rode out the momentary vertigo. Wonder transformed his features. He was appalled and yet so very proud of her. Rose felt a burst of triumph and mentally transmitted her joy to him. A smile flickered across his face. 

But she wasn’t finished. She had some measure of control now. She could see him. Feel him, in her mind and beneath her. He knew what she was planning. A warning sparked in his eyes but she paid it no heed. If it killed her she wanted to do this. She wanted to savor his reaction when she did. His palm pressed against her bare belly as he resisted, physically holding her at bay. But he didn’t stop her psychically. 

He could have stopped her. His mind was so much stronger than hers. But she knew why he didn’t. Yes, it was dangerous. Yes, it was forbidden. But he loved her. Despite his flat denials and aborted declarations she had no doubt of it. Rose knew he wanted her, wanted this. They both ached for consummation. They were on the knife’s edge of what was possible for their kind but she needed more and so did he. He couldn’t deny her. 

She fumbled along his arm, until she could slip her fingers through his. Slowly she caressed some of his most sensitive skin. He groaned. His own noise, not an echo of hers and, grinning, she mimicked him. She’d come to understand how this simple act, weaving their fingers together, had erotic potential for him. His kind clasped hand. They only laced their fingers together like this during sex. No wonder it had startled him the first time she’d taken his hand this way. 

She flashed back to that moment in the morgue as they were about to be absorbed into the Gelf. “I’m so glad I met you,” he’d gushed, genuine passion ignited by her unwitting caress. She thought of all the times since when he’d spread his fingers for her. Wiggled them enticingly, urging her to give him what amounted to an open-mouthed kiss. And she had complied, time and again, without even knowing what it meant for him. 

She was through not knowing.

“Rose,” he said aloud and in her mind. “We can’t.” She squeezed his fingers and he swallowed the first part of another sentence managing only one word, “…dangerous.”

She licked his throat and he shuddered in response. His control vanished, winking out, and Rose fell into complete awareness. Her nerves sparked. There was a disagreeable tingling in her skin as if her whole body had been numb and was now waking. She could feel the Doctor’s fingers between hers, and his other hand pressing into her stomach. She was naked, slippery between her legs from her cycling climaxes and pleasantly sore inside from clenching tight. Her robe had been cast aside. The Doctor sprawled beneath her, wearing only his slacks. She rocked against him, spreading slick juices along his zipper. If he’d been human, he would have been straining and hard for her. 

As it was he wasn’t immune to her charms. Squeezing her thighs together, she tightened her grip around his hips and leaned closer to him. His dark eyes focused on her. Her hair brushed over his lips, triggering a few dozen cnidocytes. They fired too fast to be seen but they left a light residue of fluid on his skin. Enchanted by the mini-ejaculations, Rose had an idea. She swept her nails in a swift zigzag pattern down his bare chest, triggering hundreds of tiny darts. They flared but she deftly avoided them. She didn’t want to be high. She just wanted to be free to hold him skin to skin.

The Doctor screamed. Rose jerked away from him, horrified. She watched in escalating panic as he convulsed like a man electrocuted. His long tormented wail burned red in her mind, slashing across her awareness. His jaw clenched as he quaked in agony beneath her. He clawed into the sheets. Too late she realized what she’d done. He wasn’t human. He didn’t need the same kind of release a man might. She’d inadvertently severed his connection to her. Cnidocytes firing into flesh connected them. Firing into nothing left him psychically vulnerable and alone. He’d hoped to be one with her and instead she’d amputated an essential part of him. Remorse made her reckless. Desperate to sooth, she pulled him into a kiss, her tongue sliding over his as she mentally pleaded.

Doctor, please…don’t…please I’ll do anything…please…let me help you. 

The sound he made at the back of his throat had no earthly equivalent. His fingers found her hair, her back. He locked onto her, drove her to the mattress and smothered her with his body. Every remaining cnidocyte he had fired. It was too much. They both knew it but, in the grip of primordial desire, neither one of them could pull away. They were skin to skin. A hundred pinpricks of pain became blooming flowers of pleasure for her and then for him. Their helpless cries merged, harmonized. Their nervous systems fused. They became one.

It was better than sex. 

Surely, it was sex. 

And then it was horrifying. 

A maelstrom of sensation hit Rose at the midbrain. Dark swirling currents, eddies, wind and rain and lightening strikes bombarded her fragile consciousness. Hallucinations rolled over her. Wave after wave of sensory data she couldn’t begin to comprehend assaulted her awareness. As she struggled to catalog the incoming information, input from the Doctor’s myriad senses, she realized she had no body of her own. Without form or substance she lost her bearings and tumbled into nothingness.

Somehow the Doctor stayed with her as the restless sea churned around them. She sensed him scrambling to keep up and set aside her panic. She thought only of reassuring him. There was no need to worry. She was stronger than he knew. She could weather this. He drew a breath and then another. She could feel the air in his lungs. She could feel what he felt because she was him. They were complete.

The darkness cleared. It went from night to day in a flash as if someone had thrown a switch just as Rose landed softly on apple-sweet grass. 

Her first thought was for the Doctor. He was close. She couldn’t see him but she knew. They were blissfully content. She stood to look about and found herself on an endless undulating prairie. She was wearing a silken bed sheet toga but there were no bulls or bears or swans. There was only a stiff, south-easterly breeze. She recognized it as her lover, the Lord of Time. But time meant nothing here. It was little more than the wind at her back. Seconds and minutes, hours and days, hurried her steps toward the brink of a nearby cliff. 

She did not fall. She would not fall. The Doctor would catch her if she tried. He would always keep her with him, keep her safe. There was no room for doubt here, deep inside each other, at the end of all things. Rose spun in a circle like a little girl. She opened her arms wide, taking in everything. The beauty. The bliss. The breeze.

As she tripped along the very edge of the abyss, the Doctor followed, still nothing more than the wind. They danced. Seconds and minutes, hours and days, swirled behind them, mere leaves in their wake. Beyond the cliff’s edge, far below them, was an endless sea. Rose knew it as the timeless realm, where nothing changed. When her Doctor died, truly and forever, it would swallow him. She might have called it heaven if she hadn’t once held all of creation inside her head. 

The beloved zephyr tugged at her bed sheet toga, unfurling it and seeking skin. The air buffeting her had heft, as it did in a hand cupped out the window of a speeding car. She could catch the Doctor against her palm. She could stroke him as he stroked over her. He was embodied in the wind and the wind slipped cool fingers over her breasts, teasing her nipples to taut peaks. It entered her open mouth. It whipped her sheet away, sending it into the sky like a banner or a flock of birds. Bare, exposed, she braced her legs wide and threw back her head, laughing with her Doctor as he dragged his insubstantial fingers through her hair. The breeze kissed her. Caressed her. He penetrated her, making her rise up on her toes. And she shook and shuddered through endless cycles of pleasure until finally…finally…she left time behind and simply winked out of existence.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rose woke slowly, edging toward conscious awareness as if she were climbing a rope. Up and up out of a deep, dark well. Gradually, the world became brighter. She breathed easier. The air grew sweeter all around her. She began to catalogue the messages pouring in from her assorted senses. Her muscles ached. But with a pleasant soreness, like she’d just had an invigorating massage. She could hear a fountain splashing merrily in the distance. Smell the fresh scents of water, newly turned earth and blooming flowers. Her whole being sang with a vibrant energy. She felt fully, completely alive. 

She opened her eyes, blinked, closed them again and stretched languidly. Only then did she notice a slight chill. Eyes shut, she squirmed, sliding easily against the luxurious bed linen. Her nipples hardened under the silken glide of fine, soft sheets along her bare skin. Lifting her head a little, she peeked under the covers to confirm she was naked. Where was her gown? The last thing she remembered she’d been standing by the desk, leaning down to pick up the Doctor’s book. 

And then….

He’d touched her. Kissed her. Oh…

Her gaze slipped sideways, coquettishly targeting the Doctor as he lounged on the bed beside her. He was still fully dressed, wearing his long coat even. Or, she thought, he’d dressed again. As the curtain across memory drew aside in her mind, she clearly recalled taking off his jacket, unbuttoning his shirt and running her hands, her palms, her nails over his bare skin. He’d writhed. She’d hurt him. The realization sat her bolt upright. The bed covers spilled to her lap and the Doctor reached out a steadying hand.

“Careful,” he cautioned. And then as if reading her mind added, “I’m okay. I’m fine.” In a tone of voice that sounded like he was dreading her answer, he asked, “What about you? How do you feel?” 

How did she feel? She took a quick inventory and grinned. “Marvelous,” she croaked. Her hand went to her throat in surprise. She tried to speak again and managed to rasp, “Little parched.”

“Not surprising. You’ve been asleep for two days.” His brows rose as he said this, his concern evident. “Hang on a tick.” 

He rolled away slightly, reaching out a hand to lift a glass of water off the bedside table. The glass was sweaty with condensation but there was lots of ice clinking around inside it. It hadn’t been sitting there for two days. The Doctor had been up and around. Probably he’d left her sleeping. Rose wondered how long he’d spent simply watching her. She modestly repositioned her sheet before taking the offered water. Her eyes cast sharp darts at the Doctor as she drank.

“Sip it slowly,” he ordered. She took care and they shared a few minutes of companionable silence. Finally, he grinned bashfully and remarked, “I suppose this is the point where I ask if it was good for you.”

Rose hugged the glass close, resting her chin on its rim as she solemnly considered his question. She raised her line of sight until it intersected his and said, “It was a bit different.”

The Doctor chewed this over for a moment before seeking specifics. “Are you sure you don’t mean... indifferent?”

Rose smiled at this timorous suggestion. Any human male who’d given her one-tenth the ecstasy would be crowing for days. “No. It was just…different.”

“I see,” he said, sounding unhappy.

“Not bad,” she reassured him. “Surprising. You know like…” She spread one hand out, grasping for a way to qualify an experience that had gone so far beyond anything she could have imagined. She was still searching for a place to begin when a sudden violent urge hit her. “Bathroom,” she said, thrusting her glass at him. 

“I beg your par…” He began even as he absently took the water from her.

But she was already up and out of the bed. Her knees threatened to buckle when her feet hit the floor. She made a mad grab for the headboard as the room swirled around her but she managed to re-master gravity. A quick scramble led her to her robe and she was off, tipping like a drunken sailor. Hastily covering her nakedness she staggered to the door.

“I’ll be right back,” she called over her shoulder, trying to ignore his snickering.

Once nature’s imperative had been satisfied she came cautiously back to their room. The Doctor hadn’t moved a millimeter. He had her glass held out and was still lying in the same spot. His long, lean legs were crossed at the knees. His coat was wrapped around him like a cape. Rose leaned against the doorframe to study him.

“What do you wanna know?” she asked.

“You said…not bad…but surprising?”

“It was like…I don’t know…” Pushing off from the wall, she walked toward him. “When you get up in the middle of the night and you don’t want to turn on the lights and disturb anyone so you make your way to the kitchen for a drink of milk in the pitch black…only you misjudge the jug and end up with orange juice…?” 

The Doctor nodded. “Minor shock. Even if you like orange juice.” He dipped his chin a little to meet her eye squarely. “And do you?” He left his tongue at the roof of his mouth. It was visible through his parted lips as he waited for her to answer. But when she simply stared at him he couldn’t remain silent. “Like orange juice, I mean?” He continued all in a single breath. “I’m more of a tomato juice man myself but there really is no accounting for taste. I remember one time in the constellation Orion, I….”

She sat down on the edge of the bed beside him and placed a shushing finger against his lips. He stilled, falling instantly silent, but she could feel a vibration running through him as if he were a plucked harp string she’d caught between her fingertips.

“I love orange juice,” she said. “I could have it every morning before breakfast.” He smiled and she traced the line of his lips and then drew her finger around his chin and along his throat. Mouth open on a sighing grin, he let his head drop back. She stroked the flat of her palm down his arm, took the glass from his hand and had another sip of her water. “Was I really out for two days?”

“Just a tick over, actually,” he told her, keeping his head back and his eyes closed as if still savoring her touch. Then he tipped his chin down, meeting her gaze. “Perfectly normal, as I said before. The aphrodisiac is very potent. It keeps you happy but sedate. You really shouldn’t have pressed beyond…”

“Blimey, that’s inconvenient,” she interrupted. “Mickey must think you’ve murdered me.”

“We had a discussion,” the Doctor said. “I had to show him in here. Show him you were alright.”

“With me like this?” Rose squeaked, blushing red as she swept an arm down her gown-covered figure. “Or no, not even like this. Naked. Are you mad?”

“Mickey was.”

“I can’t believe you just…”

“What was I supposed to do?” the Doctor countered, sharply. “Hope he wouldn’t notice you’d gone missing? He’s dense, I’ll grant you, but after twenty-four hours he got a little suspicious.”

“And what did you tell him? You didn’t tell him we…I mean…”

“I told him the truth.” She tensed and he rolled his eyes but clarified. “I told him you were hit with a heavy doze of neurotoxin. That I’d done what I could for you and you were sleeping it off.” Feeling strangely discontent, he looked away. “You don’t want him to know, do you? About this?”

She pressed her lips together, avoiding eye-contact and the question. Was she being childish, wanting to keep him all to herself? Not wanting to face a barrage of speculation from her friends and family? How long would it be before some asked her if she knew what she was doing, in a tone that clearly indicated they felt she didn't? After an awkward moment or two she asked, “Is this going to happen every time? Me, gone for days on end?”

“If you stimulate me, like you did, yes. What possessed you to do that? I told you it was dangerous. Why you never listen to a word I say, I’ll never…” He broke off mid-rant to cock his head at her. “You think there might be another time…a next time, then?”

She shot a quick, worried look at him. “Why? Don’t you?”

“Oh…I’d love to…” he began breathlessly before recalling himself, “I mean…you were very naughty and you don’t deserve to be given a second chance but…” He beamed brightly, humming just a little. “Yes…please…another time would be…” the sentence became a delighted sigh and he stared up at her unable to find words for his longing. “I…” He shook his head, returning to his concerns. “If you are absolutely positively sure you’re okay.”

“Better than ever,” Rose insisted. She sat her glass back into the condensation ring on the table. “Were you worried?”

“At first,” the Doctor admitted. His gaze focused beyond her, seeing again those moments just after she vanished from his mind. 

Rose took his hand. She could tell it had frightened him, losing control and then losing her. “I’m alright,” she soothed.

“You shouldn’t have been able to do that. Break through my defenses. Go into my mind like that. But a door once opened works both ways, as someone once told me. And the…cnidocytes are really only part of it…I couldn’t stop…honestly, I couldn’t…once you triggered so many of them.”

“I know,” she said, softly. “I didn’t understand but I do now. I’ll be very careful next time, I promise.”

“Your heart rate slowed dramatically. Almost no pulse at all. I thought I’d…” he looked away again. Took a deep breath and released it. Eyes closed he compressed his lips into a pale line before going on in a light-hearted way. “But you seemed to be enjoying yourself. You were…right?” he murmured, tucking his chin into his shirt collar and targeting her with big brown otter eyes. “Enjoying it?”

“It was fantastic,” she said, before leaning close to kiss him. 

He murmured illegible endearments against her lips until she broke away. “Tell me,” he urged.

“Don’t you know? Weren’t you with me? I could feel you there.”

“Your mind, Rose…is like…oh, how can I describe it in terms you might grasp? It shines, but only quick flashes in the dark like a koi in a muddy pond. I could sense you but I couldn’t seem to catch you.”

She nodded her understanding as she marshaled her thoughts. After chewing on her lower lip for a bit she said, “Alright, yeah. There was this…wind. At first, it came on like a storm, all around with no earth under me. I wasn’t falling. Not exactly. But I thought I might and that scared me. I could tell it worried you, though...my being scared. So I got myself under control and just treated it like an adventure. There were all sorts of things I didn't understand. Feelings and impressions. But then the darkness cleared away and I was standing on a cliff’s edge…on New Earth, I think. And it was the most perfect day, warm and blustery. You can’t imagine how sweet the sea-air smelled.”

“I love the sea-side,” he remarked. “We should go there more often.”

“We should,” she agreed, leaning into his arm. 

“But your story…”

“I had this bed sheet wrapped around me,” She plucked at the silken cover beneath them. “The wind buffeted about, pushing and pulling at me. We danced. I thought it might push me over the edge but you seemed to whisper in my ear. You told me I was safe with the wind. It tugged on my sheet…this breeze…full of mischief. And after a little while I started to understand that it was you. I could feel your hands touching me. I thought if I held out my arms the wind would catch in the sheet, lift me straight up and carry me like a kite out over the sea.”

“And did it?” 

She shook her head. And he shook his, bending toward her until their noses bumped mid-denial. “No, it stole my sheet. Left me naked on this...sort of prairie.”

The Doctor shifted, scooting his hips back, making room on the bed so she could settle into the curve of him. Sighing, she lounged along his body. He fit his arms around her, careful not to graze against her bare skin. Bracing up on an elbow, he studied her. 

“We made love,” he said matter-of-factly, his slow articulation turning each word sticky like cotton candy. 

“Yeah, you had your breezy way with me, alright.”

His eyes squinted as he purred into his laugh. “Heh, heh, heh,” he said, speaking his chuckle like he sometimes did. 

“But afterward. Afterward…it was so...sweet. We were in this sort of…glen…and all your other selves were there, young men and old ones. I don’t know how I recognized them. But I did. I knew them all, even what they were like in life. There were more than thirteen…more than I could count, stretching into the distance.”

“Well, thirteen is an arbitrary number,” the Doctor said, waving a dismissive hand. “Just because no one has managed more than twelve regenerations…doesn’t mean it can’t be done.”

“Your coat was spread on the grass under some trees and the breeze settled me ever-so gently on it. And Nine...your Ninth self broke out of the group to lay down next to me. And we talked…just talked for a very long time…about growing up and your parents. And a woman you thought was your mother…but she wasn’t.”

“Penelope,” he whispered. “She was a servant in the house where I spent my earliest years. Some of my first memories are of her. She died...when I was still quite young.”

“She was human?" Rose said, barely making it a question. She knew. "Like me.”

“Very much like you, yes,” he said but he didn’t elaborate.

“It started to grow dark and cold after a bit. The wind swirled around, pushing at me, pressing against my back…growing more and more solid until it became you.”

“I was there, yes. I remember, holding you.”

“It was lovely…really. Your arms keeping me safe. Your kisses tangling in my hair.”

“And then,” the Doctor said, concluding the story. “You slept.”

As he spoke, he slid his palm under her robe and across her stomach. Rose thought she might faint from the intimate stroke. It was the first time he’d shown the slightest sign of passion since she’d come to. She shivered both hot and cold at once. And the Doctor drew her to his mouth, as if he might kiss her. But instead, he licked along her cheek to her ear and then back down her throat to the bare hollow near the ball of her shoulder. He swirled the flat of his tongue over her curves. No darts pierced her but she could still feel him stretching his way into her, pumping in and out as she clenched and grew slippery wet. 

“Doctor,” she breathed every nerve in her body lighting up like Christmas.

He eased away from her, looking dazed. His tongue was a curl of pink against his teeth as he stared at her in open-mouthed, wide-eyed, wonder. His sigh stirred her hair. He seemed to be radiating love from every pore. It made Rose tingle all over. She felt herself falling again into the endless storm. It roared in her ears. But before the wind could steal her away the Doctor shut his eyes, severing their connection. 

“Oh, none of that,” he chided, releasing her quickly and rolling to the far side of the bed. He stood and backed away. “You’ve just this moment woken up. We won’t be sending you under again for a good long while.” He wagged a finger at her. “I mean it, Rose Tyler, don’t you dare try to tempt me with your vixen ways. I’m immune to that sort of thing.” He tapped his chest. “Time Lord, remember?” Rose's giggle caused the corners of his mouth to turn up despite his best efforts to maintain a stern visage. 

“Vixen?” she declared, biting down seductively on the hard syllables and then flashing her teeth at him. “I like that.” She moistened her lips. “Better than hamster at any rate.” Clutching her robe to her breast with one hand she picked up her water glass with the other and rattled the exposed ice cubes. “More please.”

“Not, yet,” the Doctor said. Moving with exaggerated care he gently extracted the glass from her grip. “Better let your systems adjust to the idea first.” 

“M’k,” Rose said, knowing he was talking as much about their sexual encounter as he was about more water. 

Coat tails swinging, he walked over to his desk and set the glass down on the blotter. Then hands shoved deep into his pants pockets, he headed for the door, calling over his shoulder as he went. “Get dressed and meet me in the control room. I want to show you something.”

Rose gave a tiny seductive growl as the door closed behind him. “Wouldn’t I just like to show you something, too?” she muttered. 

There were things she hadn’t told him. Half-formed ideas she’d discovered in his mind. She didn’t understand them but she wanted to. She got up and padded across to the wardrobe, feet sinking ankle deep into the lush carpet. The room was an exquisite mix of their tastes, designed by the TARDIS for the purpose they’d just put it to. It could be their room now. Rose wondered briefly if she still had rooms of her own somewhere. Would the Doctor expect her to go back to them? She glanced at their bed, thinking about sleeping there every night, safe in his arms. 

The thought brought a smile to her lips. The tiny flicker of movement in the wardrobe mirror caught her eye. She peered at her reflection, searching for some visible change in her appearance. She felt transformed. It seemed odd she should look the same as ever. But she did. Same bottle blond hair. Same brown eyes and upswept brows. Same wide mouth. And hamster cheeks. She grinned. He’d called her “A vixen.”

She dressed quickly, already needing to see him again, and bounced merrily down ramps and hallways to the console room. She didn’t think of Mickey once. Not until she saw him standing beside the Doctor. She fell back a few steps as both men glanced up. She had no idea what she was going to say. How she was going to tell Mickey about her new lover. The Doctor beamed. But Mickey scowled. Rose swallowed as he started across the room, firing questions as he came.

“There she is at long last. What happened to you, then? Do you have any idea how worried I was? And this one,” he jerked a thumb in the general direction of the Doctor, “wouldn't tell me anything but you're okay. I had to badger him to show me.”

“I…there was a…toxin.”

“So he said.” Mickey shot a venomous glare at the Doctor before turning back to Rose. “And that’s about all he would say.” He tapped his chest. “I want to know exactly what happened. What toxin? How’d you get it? Did you drink something…eat something? Were you stung? Bit?” Rose felt the heat rising in her cheeks. Stinging, biting...toxin...how had these painful terms become loaded with sensuality? “I thought I heard you scream but I couldn’t get anywhere in those stupid corridors. I kept running into walls.”

“I was…didn’t the Doctor tell you what happened?” She cast a pleading look across the room. And a claxon sounded deep in the TARDIS.

“Incoming,” the Doctor barked. “Rose, grab the wave stabilizer.” He indicated a lever with a stab of his finger. “Mickey, hold down that button.”

“What?” Mickey looked over his shoulder startled but Rose pushed by him, already obeying the Doctor’s command.

“Button. That button.” The Doctor pointed. “Hold it down.”

“Why?”

“Never mind why just do it,” the Doctor snapped, practically ricocheting off the walls. He zipped around the console, flipping switches and twisting dials, bounding vigorously from one spot to another. Grabbing Mickey by the wrist he drew him to the right panel. “Press this down,” he said, speaking slowly as if addressing an idiot. “Keep it down until I tell you to let go. It’s vitally important.” Mickey did as he was told. So did Rose, though she raised an inquiring brow at the Doctor as she held onto a lever she was fairly sure operated the external thermometer.

“Are we going to crash?” Mickey asked.

“Crash? No, no…well…probably not,” the Doctor said, his tone indicating there was some cause for concern. “Rose?” he called brightly from the far-side of the room. Straining, she could barely make him out beyond the pulsing rotor. He had a hand to the base of his skull and a pensive pout on his lips as he studied the monitor before him. “Do you recall that time we crashed into Sigma Epsilon instead of landing on Sigma Eighteen?”

“And you were arrested for endangering temporal bystanders?”

“And you were assigned to defend me,” he directed an inquiring glance at Mickey. “Can you imagine it? Rose Tyler as barrister?”

Mickey couldn’t. He snorted rudely. And Rose bristled. “Hey, he got off didn’t he?” she declared. Then she blushed at the unfortunate choice of phrase. Wincing, she closed her eyes.

The Doctor covered her lapse smoothly. “Actually I had to serve ten days but it could have been much worse. Tell Mickey about the trial…it was brilliant. You were brilliant. And...I imagine the story will keep his mind off other things...like crashing.” 

Rose got the message. She opened her eyes again and shot a sidelong glance at Mickey, hoping he hadn’t seen her red cheeks in the bluish light. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him. She’d never intended to get involved with the Doctor. And Mickey was still her friend. He’d always have a place in her heart…but not the first place…not any more. 

“Yeah, well," she began shakily, "I did make a very good public defender, if I do say so myself." 

“Tell him about the balloon animals,” the Doctor prompted.

“Balloon animals,” Rose said, bobbing her head as she focused her thoughts. “First there was this trial of sorts...because the Doctor would see the court system instead of accepting judgment. Oddest thing…with balloon animals…not really but like that…I don't know what they were supposed to be...representative of justice, I suppose. Just as valid as blindfolded virgins with swords when you think on it. Anyway, I had to do fractions and keep juggling these cubes while I argued his case…”

“And then there was the singing," the Doctor went on with an infectious laugh, "Harmonizing with those waiters. I never thought I'd keep a straight face all the way through.”

Mickey nodded, trying to follow the complex story while remaining mindful of his one finger on the all important button. The first reminiscence bled naturally into another about Barcelona. A tale about impudent flower sellers segued into one about Captain Jack and his ill-fated affair with a samurai warrior. The Doctor picked up the thread of a story whenever Rose ran out of steam. After a little while, she shoved her lever back into place and took a seat in the duct tape patched chair, bracing her feet against the console. 

Eventually the Doctor joined her. He, too, put his feet up. Mickey wondered if they realized how closely they mirrored each other. Their bodies fell naturally into the same attitude. They giggled over the same things and touched from time to time. Her shoulder pressed into his. His hand caressed hers as he made some sweeping gesture. They finished one another’s sentences without hesitation. Anyone could see they were a couple, in love if not lovers. In their own little world, they'd forgotten all about him.

“…and that weird munchkin lady with the big eyes? Do you remember?” The Doctor exclaimed. “The way she looked at you? And then she opens her mouth and fire comes out.”

“I thought I was going to get frazzled,” Rose laughed. 

She couldn’t believe how effortlessly they’d fallen back into their old pattern. How easy it was to sit next to the Doctor. She didn’t feel the slightest bit shy or awkward, chatting with him. Nothing had changed. He was still her Doctor, her very best friend. Even Mickey hadn’t noticed anything different about them. And he seemed to have gotten over his anger. Rose relaxed. Everything was going to be just fine.

 

END THIS PART


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one takes place just after The Idiot's Lantern. The Doctor has been trying to avoid sex with Rose, because he doesn't want her to become addicted to his neurotoxins. However, he can't hold out any longer and so he resorts to a little restraint to keep Rose from triggering him. Oral sex leads to a discussion of human beauty concepts. I always find the Doctor's reactions to our behaviours humorous. So, there's a bit of humor in this one, too.

PART FOUR

The party hit its stride around nine and was still swinging long past midnight. Rose flitted about, comparing fashions with the ladies and occasionally dancing. She’d gathered a gaggle of admirers, both male and female. The Doctor lost count of the young men courting her favor. There seemed to be an endless stream of earnest faces. They flocked around her, bringing her refreshments, telling her jokes and begging dances. Women asked about her dress and her shoes. And once or twice about her ‘young man.’ A phrase she took to mean him. That’s what he was, he reminded himself, someone she was seeing. He could be nothing more than that. He could hardly aspire to be more. She would want a life someday. A life he couldn’t give her. 

Unfailingly gracious, Rose obliged a suitor now and then, showing off a few of the period dance moves they'd mastered together. But she never strayed from his sight. A red-haired chap who reminded him a little of Turlough tried to kiss her. The Doctor tensed but she rebuffed the lad gently. Seeing her glance toward him as the redhead walked away, the Doctor lifted his nearly empty glass, toasting her conquest. She rewarded him with that slow smile he adored and went back to her flirting. 

It was good to hear her laugh ring out from time to time. Losing Mickey had sobered her. She’d cried at first and asked to go home and, feeling more lost than he ever had before, the Doctor had complied. She’d spent two weeks with her mother, reminiscing as they flipped through photo albums. Meanwhile, he’d kicked around London, hoping for a crisis but finding only pigeons and kitsch. By the third week, he’d been introduced as “Rose’s Doctor” so often he’d started to think of himself that way. He’s settled into an easy routine with the trio of blue-haired old ladies two floors down. They’d meet him on the roof to watch the sunset each evening, all three of them complaining about rising prices and kids today. They always asked after his sweetheart. 

Thankfully, Rose recovered her sense of adventure during the third week of their stay and they’d set off for ancient Alexandria. She’d enjoyed playing dress up so much he’d thought of other places and times they could visit where the costumes were fun rather than constricting. Rigel 12. Age of the Minotaur. Beachwear. Mars circa 2080. Eatable gelatin sheaths. Ed Sullivan TV studio. 1956. Pink flared skirt with sequined bodice. She’d actually squealed when she’d found the matching pink pumps.

The shoes were a huge success even in the wrong year. The Doctor watched Rose work her fashion-conscious entourage from the corner of his eye as he mingled with the neighbors. People welcomed him, told him stories. He spun out lies and half-truths and most delightfully full truths for their entertainment. Someone gave him a glass of tomato juice. He sat the orangeade he’d been nursing aside and fished the celery stalk out of his fresh drink. Crisp celery was just what he needed, something to suck on and crunch. His tongue had been tingling all afternoon. Ever since he’d swung Rose into his arms and around and around.

How long had it been since they’d kissed? Too long. Even if it hadn’t been long enough to be safe, yet. Certainly not the month he’d warned her was necessary. He counted the days off as he munched on his celery stalk. Twenty-seven? No, midnight…so twenty-eight, now. Close enough. He could walk over to her. Take her in his arms. Slide into her mouth and into her mind and…

Still, two more days would be safer. He could hold out for two days. They couldn’t afford to give in to lust. Rose could so easily become addicted to the neurotoxin. She’d been standing closer, giving him sidelong glances. And he was already too dependent on her. The wireless crackled with static as a new song started playing: Skylark, an instrumental rendition by The Glenn Miller Orchestra. The red-haired lad went in for the slow dance but the Doctor spun away from his congenial companions and arrived at Rose’s side in time to cut off the advance. 

“Mine, I think,” he said. 

“Yours,” Rose agreed, beaming up at him. 

He handed the disappointed redhead the partially chewed celery by way of compensation before guiding Rose a few steps away. The boy opened his mouth to protest, saw the look on Rose's face and simply sulked off. Throwing open his arms, the Doctor happily welcomed her. She grinned and eased into him, fitting her body along his. Resting her cheek on his shoulder, she snuggled close. He was desperate to hold her. It hadn’t been so very long since their last dance, less than an hour, but he couldn’t seem to get enough of touching her. He’d been craving this, looking for excuses to have it, ever since they’d consummated their relationship. More and more often he was finding reasons to hug her. Hold her. Spin her around. 

Her hands glided under his coat, around his waist and on up his back. Even through his suit jacket and shirt, he burned from her heat. He placed his own hands very carefully, one just below her ribcage, the other between her shoulder blades. They swayed to Miller’s seductive strings and horns. The Doctor sang along with the music quietly and very close to her ear. He sang about his love waiting to be kissed and a lonely bird flying through the night. Rose shivered, pressing closer. She found his wrist, then his hand and intertwined their fingers. She knew what it did for him, now. It was the Gallifreyan equivalent of a long, wet, deep kiss, the kind of thing that would surely shock the neighbors. 

The Doctor drew in a sharp breath. Something stirred deep in his subconscious, something riotously primitive. Stepping slightly away, he turned his head just enough to stare down into her eyes.

“We should go,” he said, his lips barely moving. “Back to the TARDIS.”

Rose moistened her lips and said, “Yeah, alright,” far too quickly for his peace of mind. 

They slipped away from the crowd. A few people noticed them leaving, called out goodbyes, but they made a fairly uneventful exit. The music faded as they traversed the alley leading to their ship. But they could hear other revelers further away. Rose kept her grip on his hand and cuddled his arm as they splashed through shallow puddles. They pulled one another along, both eager to be alone together. The moonlit streets were wet from an earlier rain. Black paving stones glittered underfoot. It was a beautiful night to follow such a chaotic day. Only that morning Rose had been lost. The Doctor recalled his fury, the possessive fire of it. He’d been so very angry. Nothing short of death would have stopped him from getting her back.

Now they were inseparable again. He had her back and the need to lock her safely away kept baying in his brain. That would be wrong. He kept telling himself how wrong it would be as he keyed open the TARDIS and they stepped inside. The warmth of home welcomed them. Their footsteps echoed as they walked up the sloping ramp to the console. Rose leaned into his shoulder.

“I had a lovely time,” she murmured. “Thank you.”

“Is it over?” He asked, sounding blatantly seductive. “Your lovely time?”

“Unless we’re really going to see Elvis, now,” she spoke very matter-of-factly. “I should go change.” 

Grinning up at him, she rocked back and forth against his arm. Her tongue teased at the corner of her mouth. They stopped at the console. He twisted a few knobs and smacked a lever to set the TARDIS in motion. As the rotor pulsed, Rose tried to pull free of his grip but he refused to let go of her hand. She tugged futilely, giving him a quizzical look before she jerked a thumb over her shoulders. 

“Got to go,” she said and then, as if sensing his mood, in a far more timorous way added, “Change.”

Gaze fixed on the monitor, he held onto her, stretching her arm to its full length as she backed away. As their fingers started to come apart, he lost all interest in pretending he had anything but her on his mind. He stepped back and pivoted toward her, moving with a fluid grace. Reeling her in, he closed the small distance between them. She stumbled forward. He twirled her as they came together, passing his arm over her head, so her back hit his chest. She bounced and gasped. Before she could shrug him off, he caught her tight against him, grinding his pelvis into the yielding flesh of her bottom. She molded into him as he nuzzled his way to her ear. 

“But I don’t want you to change,” he growled softly. 

She dug her nails into the heavy fabric of his coat and gulped, “Doctor?” 

His other arm came up to lock around her waist. After a moment, he slid the flat of his palm down her torso urging her closer. Her thighs quickly clamped shut when he reached them. But her lips were slightly parted. She wasn’t indifferent to him. The rapid pulse in her veins had her practically vibrating. He could feel her heart pounding wildly as he leaned into her back. She hadn’t been expecting this show of masculine ardor and it scared her just a little. But she didn’t want it to stop. Still, a gentleman would give her the option. For the first time in his nine hundred years, the Doctor wondered if he really was a gentelman.

“Tell me to let go,” he suggested as he drew his hand back up her body to her neckline and curled his fingers around one edge of her jacket front.

When his knuckles skimmed the velvet soft slope of her breast, Rose’s breath caught in her throat. Drawing the jacket’s shiny blue fabric to the side made the zipper crawl lower. She glanced down. “Or would you…rather…” he continued with a sort of breezy ease, “…I kept…” As he spoke, he released her hand to put all of his attention on her sliding zipper. He pulled evenly on both sides of it, easing the jacket’s tight sleeves down her arms until she was bound at the wrists by bunched fabric, “holding on?” he finished.

Hands effectively shackled behind her back, Rose swallowed hard. Once again they were in dangerously new territory. But she trusted him. He could tell she was more excited than frightened. She let her head loll against his shoulder as she said, “You just hold on.”

“Mhmmm…aren’t you brave?” he murmured before sweeping his tongue along the curve of her jaw. 

She gave a little mew and quivered, expecting the cnidocyte sting. But he wasn’t ready for that yet. He didn’t want to dream. He wanted to revel in this glorious aggression. It was new to him and utterly fascinating. He had no idea what he would do next. His fingers started popping the buttons on the side of her dress. A few sharp tugs later, the pink satin and her crisp netting slip were pooled around her ankles. As she stepped free of the tangle of cloth, the Doctor caught her and swung her around setting her on her feet again, facing him. She blushed pink all over when he swept his hungry gaze down her body. 

He was hungry. It shocked him how much he wanted this, wanted Rose, naked, bound and under him. She should be craving this, craving the drug. But she wasn’t the one who kept initiating these encounters. He saw her struggling with the jacket, trying to work her hands free. He didn’t think he was going to allow that. He put a restraining hand on her arm.

“I don’t want to drug you,” he said. “Not yet. I know you need it.”

Surprised, she stopped trying to free herself. “What do you mean?” she asked, brow furrowing a little as she looked up at him. She wrinkled her nose as she said, very forthrightly, “I need you.”

“Me? What’s that mean, me?”

“You,” she said, enunciating as if he were exceptionally slow. “I’ve been out of body all day, floating on the radio waves.”

“Television signal,” he corrected. “A radio wave wouldn’t give you the same image quality…the frequency can’t transmit enough information to recreate…” He pressed his lips together to stop the babbling. “Right, sorry…probably not relevant. You were saying…?”

Grinning indulgently she leaned into him. “Now, I’m back, breathing and alive…I want to feel you. Touch you.”

“Me, too,” he said, surprised. “It’s all I think about.” He gave his head a sharp shake. “Not touching myself…obviously…because…I could…”

“I know,” she murmured. She tipped her head back, smiling provocatively. “That’s so sweet.”

“Am I sweet?” he asked, pulling her to his chest and dropping his chin so he could stare straight into her eyes. 

“’Fraid so,” she purred.

He tipped his head a little, studying her. She had on thigh high black stockings and miniscule black knickers. Her strapless bra matched her pink shoes but was decorated with tiny black bows. Her skin had a marvelous luster. He wanted to touch it. So he did. First, drawing the flat of his palm across her belly and then slipping his arm around her waist. He flexed his knees and hefted her bottom up onto the edge of the console. She braced her bound hands behind her hips. 

They slid along each other, interlocking. His fingers traced down her outer thigh to guide one leg around his waist. Noses awkwardly bumping, they brought their foreheads together. His mouth opened, straining toward hers, aching to taste. His tongue darted out to kiss against her lips.

As his hands stroked over her he grated out, “Rose?” and then, taking in a shuddering breath declared, “I don’t know what’s come over me. I feel so…so…”

“Randy?” Rose suggested, playfully.

“Yes,” he hissed into her mouth but then, breaking free of her spell, he immediately recanted, “No.” He nibbled along her neck, following her pulse as he offered up alternatives. “Territorial. Possessive. Quixotic.”

“Quixotic?”

“I want to storm your castle,” he growled between elaborate licks of her collarbone. “Slay your dragons. Do something daring…romantic…something impossible…" He pulled back to stare at her again as he breathlessly rushed out his plea, "Something hard and fast and manly. Is there anything I can do for you, Rose?”

“Hmmm, something hard?” she asked, the corners of her mouth curving up. Hooking her other leg around him, she hugged him in tight. He fell forward, spilled over her, giggling.

“Forceful.”

“Quick.”

“Mad. Reckless,” he breathed, skating his lips down her cheek to her mouth. 

“Manly,” they murmured together.

His hands cupped her face, urging her to hold their kiss through several slow, synchronized breaths. Gradually, his fingers slipped down her neck to her breasts. Their tongues slithered over and under each other. She arched her back, bowing up into him as he worked blindly to unfasten her bra. Exposing her rosy pink nipples, he spared them a brief glance. They peaked on impossibly pliable, exquisitely firm globes. She had breasts like newly hatched Mitignites, his Rose. They jiggled when she moved. Pressed against him they always made him feel just a little giddy. It was unnatural for a Time Lord to feel this way about breasts. He ran his hands over them, fondling her, pleasing her, squeezing gently as his palm circled and his thumb caressed. 

Rose moaned and rocked her hips in a figure eight. And for the first time in his life he wished he was human and had something phallic to give her. He had to give her something. Enslaved by her desire, he answered her summons the only way he could, licking his way back to her kiss-swollen lips. His fingers crept up her throat to comb the ribbon and pins from her hair. His teeth raked along her jaw line. Reaching her ear, he toyed with her earring, rolling the beads against her cheek with his nose. He tugged on the hook with his teeth and pushed with his tongue until he succeeded in sucking the bauble free of her ear lobe. The pink dangle skidded down the slope of her bare breast.

“I want to taste you,” he whispered, low and quick. “Everywhere. All over. Is that alright?”

She nodded and rasped, “Yes…yes, I thought you’d never…please.” 

Adjusting their angles, he lowered his head and tentatively licked first one taut aureole and then the other. She tasted like bath powder and soap and sweat and Rose, her own blend of salty toxins. He caught hints of her cellular debris, the flavor of fragmented DNA and the chemical signature of every emotion she'd had recently. He could taste her earlier fear and her later satisfaction. There was a seasoning of passion from their reunion hug and a dash of exuberance from the dancing. He savored the tang of her desire for him. It effervesced. He’d never tasted anything more delectable. He met her gaze for a moment, letting her see how happy it made him to know her like this. Then, he returned his attention to pleasing her. He grew quite bold, suckling loudly, groaning when she did.

The scent of her escalating arousal filled the room. It worked on his nerves like rain pounding on a tin roof, a relentless drone in his head. “Mine, mine, mine…” it said, keeping time with his beating hearts. He agreed. She was his. He was hers. The possessive could go either way. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, he thought, and nearly laughed out loud. Rassilon help him he was losing his objectivity. 

This was nothing if not subjective. His fingertips skimmed over her, picking up her thoughts, her feelings. Spiraling lower and lower in response to her need, he reached her navel. From there, he arrowed straight down to the scrap of soaked cotton between her legs. It was oily, slippery to the touch. He worked the drenched fabric in a series of tight circles, making Rose buck and writhe. He stroked her hard and fast. Hooking his other hand into the side of her briefs he waited for her hips to lift. When they did, a well-timed yank sent her knickers to her knees. She kicked free of them as he scooped her up and carried her to their chair for two. 

Draping her across the seat, he took her the way he knew a man would. He shoved her knees open, thrust between them and ground against her, rocking his pelvis, mimicking the human sex act as they kissed. Climaxing from the friction, she said his name as if it were a prayer, letting each of the complex syllables melt on her tongue. And it struck him as a bit odd, her knowing it when he didn't. Though as soon as she'd said it he forgot it again. 

He was the Doctor. She was his Rose. She’d been telling the truth. She didn’t seem to need anything but him. He stared into her eyes as he shifted his hips away from hers and slowly walked his fingertips up her inner thigh to the spongy, slippery mound between her legs. She opened a little wider for him, her mouth and her legs. He kissed her again as he cupped his palm over her sensitive flesh. Her skin felt impossibly smooth under the heel of his hand. Breaking off from her mouth, he lurched to the side, glancing down. 

“You shaved?” he said, hitting a higher register than was, in strictly masculine terms, appropriate to their situation. 

The look on his face combined with the loss of all physical contact acted like a spray of cold water on Rose’s mood. She shivered, pushing herself up on her elbows as she sputtered at him, “Wha…wha’s wrong?”

“You...shaved,” he repeated, forcing his intonation to a manlier rumble even as his bug-eyed, darting glance and bobbing chin nudged her attention in the direction of her offense. His upper lip curled in distaste. 

Rose looked down, perplexed. Her brows lifted slightly. “Yeah? Well...waxed.”

“Waxed? Waxed?” Sneering, he drew away a little as if she’d transformed into something altogether garden-slug like. 

"A Brazillian. While we were back home. I just thought...well...most men..."

“Is this done...waxing? Is it something you do? I don’t know…I mean you had hair before and now you’re…you’re bald.” Nose crinkling, he met her eye. “Bit of a shock!”

She glanced up at him and then down again, clearly at a loss. “If you say so,” she murmured, tilting her head to the side. “Pretty normal where I come from.”

“Oh, yes, I know,” he said, nodding vigorously. “I’ve seen the adverts. Every second of everyday you’re bombarded with negative messages, someone’s always claiming there’s something wrong with your natural state. Cover your scent. Cover yourselves. Wear this. Buy that. What have you people got against hair?” He demanded. “You…you straighten it and curl it and dye it and stuff it under wigs and hats. Shave your head. Shave your legs. Wax. Whatever. Too much hair under your arms or on your upper lip? Burn it off. And you…you, Rose Tyler…you peroxide and pluck and powder and now,” he waved a hand at her, “now this…?” 

“Look if you don’t like it, it grows back,” Rose huffed. “And you shave. I've seen you.”

“A beard, yes. Beards are status indicators on any number of worlds and you can’t keep reshaping them to fit the planet you’re on or the time you’re in. Tedious work and I'd rather be thought unmanly than aggressive. Time travelers need to be careful about beards…and hair length…and hats. You can usually get away with a scarf…but nobody sees your,” he waved a hand at her private parts, “…except me…”

“I know that," she sighed. "Look, it’s just…in a relationship…sometimes…” Red with embarrassment, Rose pinched her eyes shut. Dropping her head back, she did a slow count to twenty and then without looking at him said, “I just thought…with the month coming up that we might…”

She didn't want to spell it out for him. Tears of frustration glittered in her eyes as she bit down on her lower lip. It struck the Doctor anew how vulnerable she was, hands bound behind her, naked except for her stockings and shoes. A sharp pang, very like one of cupid’s arrows, struck the center of his chest. He moved closer to her, wanting to shelter her from his own rudeness. He felt like an obnoxious jerk, which, he reflected, he probably was. 

“Might what?” He murmured, stroking her shoulder. 

“Oh…what’s the use?” she puffed. “You know my mum says people who can’t talk about sex shouldn’t be having it.” Blowing the hair from her eyes with another strong exhale, she raised her head and met his gaze squarely. “Look, I’m usually like this…shaved or waxed, okay? If it’s shocking you, I’m sorry. But I wasn’t planning on…well…any of it, last time. We'd been flying about time and space for so long, no men onboard and no beaches and I'd let myself go a little.” She took a quick breath, looking beyond him and working the tension out of her jaw before going on, “But this time I wanted everything to be nice. Perfect…oh, alright…I know it was silly of me. Stop with the staring. I just thought..you know how you are? Like you said, you want to taste me. You have that thing…where you lick walls and windowsills and such?”

“A…tongue?”

“No.” To his relief, she actually laughed as she shook her head, happy with him again. She snorted, "Tongue?" unable to believe he'd suggested it. "No, the psychological thing…you know, like an obsession…only that's not the right one. Where you stick random bits in your mouth...you can’t help yourself. A…what’s it?” If her hands were free the Doctor knew she’d be snapping her fingers at him. He adored watching her work things out. Her eyes flashed when she finally did. “Fixation. Yeah? You got an oral fixation. And a copy of the Lesbian Kama Sutra and I just thought you might…” She glanced down, again, this time drawing his gaze with hers.

A slow grin swept the last traces of confusion from his face. He allowed his eyes to travel slowly up her torso and then turned his shoulder into hers and gave her a little nudge. 

“You thought I might…fixate?” The way he hissed and tongued over the word made it sound very sexy indeed.

“Yeah,” she sighed.

He started nodding. “Alright, yes, I’m…” he said, continuing with the bobbing head. “Getting used to it. Takes a little mental adjustment…but…no…yes, now, I think on it…smooth…is…smooth is good…I like smooth things…jazz…and,” he paused and stilled, only his gaze prowling over her. He couldn’t think of any smoothness in the world he might compare to her skin, “and then there’s….glass, ice,” he swallowed as he stared at her slowly rising and falling breast, “smoothies…” He glanced down, boldly studying the new landscape as Rose blushed anew.

“Some people have it pierced,” she said. “I could get a rose stud and…”

“I’ve obviously been reading all the wrong magazines,” he murmured, grimacing slightly. Then, he met her eye again. “Up to you, of course, but I’d rather you didn’t. Pierce, I mean. As for the hair…you don’t have to, you know? Not for me.”

“I guess I know that, yeah,” she said. Pressing her lips together, she favored him with a tight little smile and then added, “But it makes me feel…better…”

He sighed. “Nothing is better than being Rose,” he said. 

She gave a nervous little laugh as she asked, “Even if I’m bald?” 

“Even if,” he said, dropping to the floor before her. His coat flared around him, reminding her of the disparity of their relative states of dress. “Bald is beautiful. It’s the new black. I embrace the bald,” he announced brightly, resting his cheek on the inside of her knee. A tremor shook her leg as his fingers dipped into her slick velvety folds. “Given some encouragement, I could learn to love the bald.” He used his fingertips to gently ease her open and then, leaning in, drew his tongue along her moist slit. She quaked and gasped. “That sort of thing, yes,” he said. “I feel encouraged already.”

“Less talking,” Rose ordered. 

Mouth pressed into her, he snickered madly, gleefully. The buzz of light laughter made her shiver and squirm against his lips. “Your wish is my command,” he mumbled. “But be careful what you wish for.”

He closed his eyes, wanting to absorb every nuance of texture and flavor. Enthralled by the vibrations under her skin, the hammering of her pulse, he hummed a harmonizing melody as he gently sampled her secrets. He remembered what was like to be her. She liked to be touched, petted. He traced his fingertips over her. Her nerve endings sparked for him even without an aphrodisiac. He knew how to make her tremble. His tongue lapped and licked around the sensitive bud of her clit, teasing it to engorged delight. Blooming like a rose, she grew wetter, suppler. His long fingers slipped easily in and out of her.

“Oh, now that,” he whispered, genuinely awed. “That's beautiful. You’re like…warm honey inside…like…a candy cordial. Resisting just a little but then when I press in…" he pressed in, "Up…oh, you give way so easily and go all sticky, slick and slippery and…clinging.”

If felt so good inside her. She molded her flesh to his, gloving his fingers. He couldn’t help going back every few seconds for more. He stroked her all over, exploring her inner thighs, her bottom, her belly and her breasts. The skin around his mouth was soon coated with her juices. He reveled in her flavors and her varied responses. She gasped when he sucked on her right nipple, moaned when he nuzzled the left. She lightly drummed her heels against his back whenever his fingers teased the bundle of nerves at the top of her petal soft core. 

When she clench around him, he paused to watch her pull him in deeper. His whole being seemed to sink into her each time. Breathlessly, he told her how it thrilled him. What it meant to him to be inside her, to be milked by her tight, slick walls. The cnidocytes in his tongue swelled into nubs but he refused to fire them. He sucked her swollen clit into his mouth again and ran the hard ridges of his own arousal over hers. She thrashed, yelping and bashing her head against the back of the chair as she crested through climax. 

He kept at her, swirling and probing with his fixated tongue, needing to fire into her, denying his need and driving her toward a second orgasm and then a third. Kicking off a shoe, she braced the stocking-clad sole of one foot on his shoulder as she arched in rapture. His tongue could go deeper, now, reach every delicate fold. She bounced under him, groaning, straining at her bonds. Her nails clawed into the seat cushion. Varying pressure and speed, he used every trick he’d learned in his reading and brought her up again through another jolt of ecstasy. This time she just kept shaking. Three of his fingers twisted into her as she shattered for final time. It finished her. She ejaculated a thin stream of fluid into the palm of his hand and fell back, limp and panting.

“Now that,” he declared, with smug satisfaction, staggering to his feet, “That…is what I call encouragement.” He nodded erratically at her as he beamed with delight.

Despite her gasping exhaustion, Rose managed a weak chuckle. The Doctor sobered, stilled. Barely breathing, he stared into her eyes as he drew his hand passed his tongue and licked every trace of her from his palm. Rose felt instantly aroused again. Combing the clean hand through his hair, he broke up his ruffle. His fingers clutched at the base of his skull as he ran his heated gaze over her. Something glimmered in his mild, brown eyes, something predatory. He stepped closer. Gathering her to his chest, he reached around her shoulder and deftly freed her hands from her tangled jacket. 

“I’m not through with you,” he said, “Not by a long way.” 

He hooked his fingers behind her knees and guided her legs under his long coat and around his waist. She hugged his neck as he lifted her easily, one arm under her bottom the other around her shoulders. Another woman might have pulled back, scared of the smoldering passion in him and how unexpectedly strong he was but he couldn’t scare her. She buried her face in the curve of his throat, clinging to him like a small child might cling its father as he carried her deeper into the TARDIS. 

END THIS PART


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Continuing after Idiot's Lantern, with more light bondage and alien sexuality. The Doctor and Rose experience convergence, something Time Lords no longer do in the Doctor's experience. But then, times have changed for Time Lords, species survival takes precedence even for them. And the Doctor is very much in love with Rose Tyler.

PART FIVE

She’d gone back to her old room. After Mickey left, she’d gone back there to mourn. It just hadn’t seemed right to go straight to the Doctor the same night she lost her friend forever. But she was finished mourning and it seemed the Doctor was finished waiting for her to come home. He took her to their room, to their bed. Everything was just as she remembered. Dozens of books vied for space on his desk. Starlight twinkled overhead and there was the sweet scent of flowers in the air. A fountain tinkled merrily. The bed was piled with pillows and covered in rich linen. He bent over, disentangling her from his waist and neck so she fell the few inches to the coverlet. She bounced a little and had to claw into the sheets for stability. 

The Doctor stared down at her. Not speaking. Not moving. The tilt of his head shadowed his gaze. His expression was unreadable but the room seemed to grow darker, colder as if black clouds were rolling in above them. Rose shivered, suddenly aware of her nakedness. The oncoming storm, she thought, and developed goose bumps everywhere. Every single muscle in her body drew taut as she poised to spring away from whatever was about to strike.

She watched the Doctor warily. He didn’t move a muscle. Then he opened his mouth a little, formed words with his lips but still didn’t speak. Ever so slowly, he lowered his chin until he was looking at her from beneath a furrowed brow. It was the fierce stare of a warrior god. He drew a long audible breath over his clenched teeth. His dimple appeared as he worked his jaw muscles. He seemed to be holding himself in check against some raging passion while he studied her, almost dissecting her with his sharp gaze. Rose felt trapped, pinned down like a mouse in the talons of a bird of prey.

Without shifting his focus from her, he removed his coat, whipping it off and twirling it away. A matador casting aside a cape. Rose broke eye contact to follow the coat’s flight. Glancing back, she saw the Doctor hook two fingers into the knot of his tie. He tugged until the silken material began to give. The knot came undone slowly, seductively, the band of the tie snaking through his collar.

“I’m going to bind your hands with this,” he said, allowing the tie to slither between his fingers. He nodded toward a spot behind her. “To the headboard.”

Rose tipped her head back until she could see the bars he planned to use to restrain her. Her mouth set in a stubborn line and both of her brows lifted in dismay. She started to object but changed her mind as the humor of it struck her and instead drawled, “Right, then,” she gave a little shrug, “And you’ll be doing this because…?” She shifted her gaze until her line of sight intersected his. “You think the imaginary three-way with a 900 year old alien probably isn’t kinky enough to get me the front page of News of the World?”

Despite an obvious effort not to react, the Doctor’s composure started to crack. His lips curved into a smile. His eyes gleamed and then creased at their corners. And then they almost crossed as he bent double and broke into helpless snuffling giggles. Rose couldn’t keep from beaming back at him as he sank down on the mattress edge next to her. 

“You think I’m…kinky,” he gasped between snorts. Gulping in air and nearly overset with childish glee, he nudged her with an elbow. “Go on. Kinky? Really?” He wrinkled his nose as he said, “Sexually deviant? Well I suppose I am. We are. Can’t say it’s been done before. Even Omega didn’t go this far. But kinky? Like…like…something from a Sunday Sport advert?”

“Just a bit,” Rose said, primly. “Though mind you maybe not as bad as Sunday Sport.”

“But…still…enough to be going on with,” he said, nodding sagely. “Kinky? That’s just…just…topping.” He beamed at her. “I’ve gone from no sex life to speak of to ‘Dear Lord, you did what?’ in one regeneration. I’m like a…a…prodigy. Mozart or Klef Daggle.”

“Klef?”

“Daggle. Invented the transtemporal yo-yo at the tender age of three. Brilliant mind but quite mad. Certifiable.”

“Ah. Well...yeah...I don’t know though. Is it kinky for you?” Rose mused. “I’ve got a career blooming on talk radio, people will be lining up to interview me but you can’t get in the papers for having sex with a shop girl. Even saying you tie her up first.”

“Oh…can’t I just…” he challenged. “Maybe not in your provincial Earth papers but I can see the front page of the Raxacoricofallapatorius Weekly Gazette.” He held out both hands and mimed bracketing a banner headline in the air. “Renegade Time Lord Shags Hairless, Some Say Shaved, Ape.”

Rose snickered, as she added, “Oral Fixation Debate Heats Up.” 

“Face of Bo Averted.”

“Oh, or,” She pointed at him. “Slitheen Green with Envy.”

“Girl’s Mother Claims She Suspected All Along,” the Doctor finished. He rubbed at a spot on his cheek. “At least now I can hold my head up. Feel I earned that slap,” he said. “I hate getting slapped for nothing.” Rose made a rude noise and he took quick revenge, lightly lashing at her bare breast with the tail of his tie, flicking the silken end against her skin.

“See? That…tha’s kinky,” Rose said, cupping a hand over her pleasantly throbbing nipple. 

“I think it comes naturally,” he said with some pride. “Like a talent for music.” 

“Yeah, you’re gifted alright.”

He sat up again and scratched behind his ear with one finger. “So, about the…bondage. At the risk of losing my new notoriety, I can't say I enjoy tying you up. I’m not…” he turned his head a little so she could see his concern and the truth in his eyes, “stimulated by the idea or anything. Just the opposite, actually. I love your hands,” he lifted her left one, carrying it to his lips, and kissed the webbing by her thumb, “your touch.” He licked at her palm and she could feel his cnidocytes pushing up into buds. He drew his tongue back in. “I just don’t want to become too aroused by you and fire off…prematurely.”

“I said I’d be careful next time…this time,” she protested. “I won’t trigger your cnid…needocy…”

“Cnidocytes.”

“’Cause, I know better now.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about, Rose. Honestly. It’s me. I want to do something else with you, not the dreaming. Something I expect will make me very aroused. And I know if you touch me, I’ll lose focus. That’s all.” He peered earnestly at her as he tested her willingness. “Okie-dokie?”

“I…” she thought about all the reasons why she had never even considered letting someone tie her up but none of them seemed to matter. The Doctor wasn’t going to hurt her. Or humiliate her. Or even allow her to be hurt. He would never use her. “Sure,” she said finally and held out her hands, wrists together.

He flashed a sparkling grin at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling with anticipation. “It’ll be fine. Fun. I promise. I’ll use a slip knot.” He demonstrated for her, wrapping her wrists in a quick turn of his tie. “Easy to release. You just pull on this long piece when you want to be free and it let’s go.” He tugged and she was instantly untied. 

“So, you do trust me.”

“Of course,” he said, meeting her eye as he carried her hands over her head. His lips brushed very close to her cheek. “I’m counting on you to restrain yourself. The tie is nothing more than a reminder. Can’t have you trussed and helpless. What if I’m suddenly transmatted out of here by a Dalek time scoop and need you to come rescue me? Or we could fall through a crack in time. If I’m thrown from the bed and knocked unconscious, you’ll have to make dinner.”

“If only more people considered that sort of thing,” Rose muttered in mock earnestness. “There’d be fewer household accidents.”

Working practically on top of her, he looped his tie around her wrists and then through the bedstead. Once the knots were secure, he placed the release in Rose’s grasp. “One good tug,” he said. 

She nodded, sucking on her lower lip as she watched him start unlacing his shoes. “So, what are we doing, then? Besides…” she popped her ‘b’ as she said, “bondage?”

“Oh, didn’t I say?”

“Nope,” more popping, this time the ‘p’, as she turned her head to take in a bit of the room, “you didn’t.”

“I thought we might try intercourse.” 

“You mean before…when we….? That wasn’t it with the little darts?”

It was his turn to over enunciate and under communicate, “Nope.”

“Do we need…protection?”

“No,” he said, quickly. Then, frowning slightly and scratching the back of his neck, he paused to weigh the idea. Finally, he shook his head. “No, I shouldn't think so, no. Should be perfectly safe.”

He shoved his socks into his trainers and tossed each shoe toward a separate corner of the room. Narrowing her eyes to slits, Rose glared after the bouncing footwear. She thought about the Herculean task of picking up after him, night and day. Then, she gave herself a sharp mental shake. She would never pick up after him. If she found herself tempted she’d ask to go straight home. She wasn’t going to turn into one of those women who moan and grumble as they gather up underwear. Let him keep his clothes in a pile if it made him happy. She wanted him to be happy. She noticed him watching her from the corner of his eye, a chary, almost hunted expression on his face, as if he’d caught a whiff of burgeoning domesticity. 

His fingers worked busily, unfastening the buttons on his shirt, getting all the way to his waistband before he turned toward her and asked, “Something wrong?” 

“Not a thing. Just lying here soaking up the…experience.” She smiled warmly at him, eyes shining with affection, and slowly the tension eased from his shoulders.

He took a deep breath and releasing it launched into an explanation. “From what I’ve read sex for my people consists of seven distinct phases.” Dragging his hand through his hair, he stood and paced a few steps away. He dropped his hands to his waist and started to remove his trousers. “What we’ve done so far is what you would call foreplay. But it's also a sort of...test.” He glanced down, as his fingers began unzipping his fly and apparently thought better of it. Switching his focus, he yanked his shirt tails from his waistband and then took a moment to open each of his cuffs. Dress shirt hanging loose, he turned to face her and began ticking off the steps on his fingers. “Attraction…we’ve got that in abundance…Contact…when I hold you, kiss you, it just feels right…Arousal…the need to fire into you, pounce, grab…Injection, True Union, Intercourse and…uhm….” He blinked at her and then hurriedly removed his shirt and undershirt, casting each item to the floor. “Well, never mind. Haven’t gotten through number six, yet. No need to go borrowing trouble.”

“And what…?” Rose insisted. “What happens after intercourse?” 

“Nothing,” he said, very quickly. “Or…well…” He rubbed the back of his neck for a moment and then just as quickly said, “Convergence.”

“And that would be…?”

“Where we…converge. Unite. Join together.” He interlaced the fingers of both hands. 

“Felt pretty much converged last time.”

“That was true union. A meeting of the minds, if it goes well…and it did go very well…” he said giving her a bright smile, “then we know we can move on to this…to intercourse.”

“And if that goes well…” Rose said, “Then, what? We…join together?”

“If you want to…yes. I would...yes,” he said softly. Looking down, he opened his fly and stepped out of his trousers. He glanced up while keeping his chin lowered. “Do you think you might…? Want to?”

Not entirely sure what he meant, Rose squeezed her lips together and instead of answering his query, ran her gaze over his naked body. It wasn’t like his ninth one. Nor Mickey’s. Nor like any of the other boys she’d been with. He didn’t have washboard abs or a well-defined chest. What he did have was an incredible backside, round, high and powerful. She’d noticed it before, when he’d tucked his hands in his trouser pockets. He was broad in the shoulder, defined there but leanly tapered. Sleek and pale, she thought, and not quite human. He was built like something that might pounce. Undressed, he seemed more alien and more weathered than she’d imagined. The thought of him touching her made her ache inside with immediate need. 

“Come here,” she said in a throaty burr. 

The Doctor’s slow smile reached his eyes before it bloomed on his lips. Moving with languid grace, he complied with her request, slinking smoothly, barely shifting the bed under them. He glided along her skin. When his body blanketed hers, he exhaled and settled his weight ever so gently. Rose shifted him a little, getting absolutely comfortable. His mouth grazed her throat, sucking lightly. A tangle of brown hair, stiff with pomade, rubbed against her cheek. She sighed into total relaxation, letting her knees fall open so he could get even closer. He had an alien suppleness and his skin, like the hair on his chest and arms felt unnaturally soft. But his underlying muscle had no give to it at all.

Rose thought she must be nothing but give. She felt so submissive. She didn’t even tug on her bonds as the Doctor began caressing her. He explored every nook and cranny of her body. Dipping his fingers or his tongue into her ear or her navel, he mapped each contour. She was like clay in his hands, malleable. He took his time concentrating on learning the many ways he might satisfy her. Rubbing, tapping, licking, humming, tickling, he never tarried but simply catalogued her reaction and moved on. When he reached her thighs, he meticulously peeled off one of her silk stockings, rolling the gauzy fabric to her toes. Bracing her bared heel against his shoulder, he lapped at her ankle, like a dog slurping up water. The impulsive saturation inspired an equal wetness between her legs.

Delighted by the effect, he gave her some giddy encouragement and repeated the entire process with her other stocking. This time as he licked, he carried her ankle to the outside of his shoulder and simultaneously braced the heel of his hand on her opposite thigh, holding her legs wide open. Splayed, she had no choice but to arch and squeeze her buttocks together as she tried to ease the intense throb at her core. 

“Doctor?”

“Yes, Rose?” he inquired mildly before scoring a multitude of little nips all the way down the inside of her leg.

“I…fuck,” she managed to groan. What he was doing with his tongue short-circuited her brain. The headboard creaked as she yanked on his tie.

After curling his tongue free, he chided her playfully, “Vulgarity is never appropriate,” he said. But a few minutes later he lifted his head a little so he could see her face as he asked, “Or was that a suggestion?”

Rose glared at him. “Like I told Mickey’s mate, Stan,” she gasped. “'That's a verb not an adjective’”

“Did you really? Would have loved to have seen that. Rose Tyler, Avenging Grammarian.”

“Doctor…please…”

“Do you want the toxin? Penetration?”

“No, I…just get…closer…”

“Closer,” he murmured, complying. 

He ran his hands up her sides, skimming her arms until he could grip her bound wrists. She’d been tugging hard on her restraint and his silk tie was biting into her. She had red marks on her creamy skin. He gently eased the stress, rubbing his thumbs in soothing circles over the chaffing. His mouth caught hers and he toyed with her lips. She leaned into the kiss, wanting him to go deeper. He found her tongue and invited it into his mouth. 

Deeper. Closer. There it was again, the sound of rain, pounding on him. Want. Need. Must. The relentless beat bent him to her will. He let the liquid heat of Rose soak into him. It felt wondrous. He bloomed toward it.

Rose jerked when something touched her intimately, something warm and wet and…curious. She struggled away from a kiss. Shifting her shoulders, she shifted the Doctor and lifted her head to peer down his body. There was nothing to see but his hips locked into hers. She gulped in air, fighting against a sudden nausea. Her mind scrambled, trying to put a name to a dozen alarmingly new sensations as the Doctor’s…whatever it was spilled over her nerve saturated flesh. 

It crawled. It scuttled. Between her legs, something slimy…skittered.

“Gah…what the hell is that?” she yelped, digging her heels in and nearly bucking him off. 

“That’s me,” he soothed, holding on tight as she writhed. “Bit different than you’re used to?”

Trying to inch up the bed away from whatever was slithering over her and into her, Rose squeaked, “Different? It’s alive.”

“Well, of course it’s alive,” the Doctor snorted as his hands fastened around her waist to keep her from getting away. “I’m alive.” He gave her a wide-eyed stare. “Human men are alive, too. Don’t they move?”

“Not like that,” she said, squirming and hitching her body around as she tried to get comfortable with whatever he was doing to her. “God, it’s like…thousands of little,” The look on his face was expectant and too vulnerable. Rose took hold of her fear induced fancy and discarded the first few images that came to mind. She didn’t want to say the wrong thing. After all, it didn’t exactly feel bad. In fact, it felt like… “Tongues, hundreds of tiny tongues…all swirling and licking and….” She shuddered involuntarily, not with fear but with pleasure, “vibrating, oh…oh….” 

Her breathing turned to panting as the vibration intensified. The tremor alone burrowed deep into her, traveling along her clenched inner walls and rigid limbs. Her insides seemed to liquefy. In a boneless, trembling state, she slumped back down on the bed. The pulsing thrust surged toward her womb and she splayed into relaxation. Her heartrate slowed dramatically. Every breath she took thrummed, throbbed. 

The Doctor started kissing her breasts and her throat and murmuring, “Yeah…that’s right…that’s better…no probs, no worries…just me and you, you and me, the Doctor and Rose…converging…”

Rose knew she would never have enough of this new sensation. Not if they stayed like this forever. It shook her. She mewed. All the tension in her body migrated from her extremities to her center. Heat and longing gathered under her breastbone. They twisted into one long shriek of ecstasy. It coiled. It struck, exploding toward her throat. 

Pulling as tight a well-tuned piano string, she thrust up with her hips and cried out, “Oh, god! Ohgodohgodohgod, baby.” Collapsing, she gasped, “God,” once more.

“Did you just call me ‘baby?’ the Doctor asked mildly amused. “Or possibly…god?”

Rose could hear the delight in his voice. And through a veil of sparkling lights, she saw his enchanted if bemused expression. But she was too far gone to confirm or deny anything. She could barely catch her breath. The humming and throbbing had entered her bloodstream. Spasms quaked through her frame. The Doctor pushed up on an elbow to watch her transform into pure passion. Seeing her glazed eyes, he gripped her face, found her temple with two fingers and let her thoughts pulse over him. 

Doctor, my Doctor…I need…I’m…Oh,godnotagain…Coming…I’m coming…

Come on, then. Come on, you…beautiful…visceral…creature. Break. Break over me.

Oh…God…In.

Yes, let me in, all the way in. Deep.

Deeper.

Oh, Rose, open. Open your mind. Open that door for me, Rose.

He didn’t push. He didn’t dare push her. He pleaded. Plaintively begging for the fire. Until the door heard him. Saturated with energy, it glowed at the back of her mind. He stepped toward it, placed a firm hand against it, and then, as her entire being shattered like pulverized glass, the door flew open, sweeping everything away with a blinding light. Her soul passed through his, wrenching him from his body. He went blind. Deaf. Numb.

“I can’t see,” he said, as if sudden, absolute blindness were a curiosity. “I can’t feel…sense. Anything.” It crossed his mind to wonder if she was still there. Could she still see him? Hear him? “Rose?” 

All alone in the vastness of space, breathless, helpless, he started to panic.

As the Doctor struggled to find himself, Rose, wafting down like a breeze-borne feather reoriented to her body. She tried to marshal coherence from the fragments of her awareness. The Doctor was calling her. He needed her. But she simply could not move. Every cell in her body had found peace. She tried in vain to open her eyes, to move her feet or her fingers.

She managed to call him in her mind. When he didn’t answer, she searched for him. 

Doctor? What is it? What’s wrong?

“Rose?” he cried plaintively, a lost little boy abandoned to the dark. 

Outside her body. He was outside. Somehow separate from her. It didn’t seem natural. She forced her eyes open, squinted and saw him quivering above her. 

“Doctor? Can you hear me?” She said her voice a brittle rasp.

He didn’t respond, only stared blankly through her. Galvanized into action despite the lethargic drag on her soul, she yanked on the release for her hands. As soon as she was free, she reached for him. He reared away from her touch, every muscle straining and stiff. She caught the back of his neck, soothing him, stroking him. Like a frightened animal he shivered and then pressed into her warmth. He came forward, nudging his hips into her. She wrapped around him, arms and legs. Combing her fingers through his hair, she whispered meaningless endearments into his deaf ears. She kissed his cheek. 

He oriented his head, tilting it toward her until his mouth latched onto hers. His fingers clawed along her shoulder and up her neck until they found her skull, her temple. He entered her mind like a shower of fireworks’ sparks. Ripping free of the kiss, he pulled back and his eyes fixed on her with laser-like intensity as if he were truly seeing her for the first time. 

His mouth fell open on a breathy, “Oh!” He said it again, “Oh,” and then, “Rose…I think I’m going to…”

Instead of completing the thought, he sucked in a great gulp of air. It choked him. His throat closed with a strangling gasp. His body arched as if someone had punched him in the stomach and then, whip-cracked back like a sheet in a strong wind. Corded sinew stood in sharp, strained relief all over him. He shuddered. And, groaning sent a gush of viscous, hot cream all over her most intimate flesh. The rich fluid filled her, brimmed over and trickled down her bottom to soak the sheets. 

“Climax,” the Doctor said in a very small voice.

And then, as if he’d drained his whole being into her, he collapsed in a dead faint. 

Rose heaved a shuddering sigh. She didn’t want to move. She wanted nothing more than to lay there under the Doctor’s weight. It felt so good. She felt so good. She was divinely exhausted. If anyone had told her she could come so hard, so often, she would never have believed them. Satisfaction was a wholly inadequate word for the blissful cocoon around her. It seemed wrong to disturb anything, change anything about this moment. But her conscience wouldn’t let her rest until she was sure the Doctor was alright. Concern made her push against the languid pull of complete contentment. Lifting her hand, she prodded his shoulder. 

“Doctor?” 

She waited for an answer.

Nothing. Not a twitch.

Gripping his arms, she shook him. When he didn’t react, she bucked her hips, heaving him to the side. He flopped over onto his back. His one arm flew wide, wrist dangling off the edge of the bed. He looked beautiful in this state, an angel in heavenly repose. But he was pale as death and it frightened her. Every trace of her lethargic fulfillment evaporated, burning off like morning fog. She sat up and pressed an ear to his chest. The satisfying double beat of his hearts eased her mind. She could hear the air whooshing in and out of his lungs. He was out cold but alive.

As her eyes angled down his body, she noticed his sex, curling closed like a wilting flower. Curious, she edged closer to it. As she breathed out, it flared open slightly, almost pulsating. Fascinated, she blew a steady stream of air across it and it bloomed. It looked nothing like the skittering, slimy things she’d first imagined. It was certainly alien but rather lovely, as simple and as unfathomable as an orchid. When she stopped stimulating it with her breath, the pastel petals furled into the same shape as a man’s flaccid member. Very gently, she stroked one fingertip along what would be the shaft and felt the deep purr of vibration again. Biting her lip, she smiled. How could she ever go back to a mortal lover after this?

She was full of him, now. Full of her Doctor, he was in her heart and mind and body. She opened her legs and tentatively touched herself. Amazed she wasn’t the slightest bit sore, she dipped a finger into the jellying seed he’d left inside her. There had been a lot of fluid and it seemed to be setting. She thought about washing it out. The Doctor had said there was no need for protection but what if his semen hardened like plaster or did something equally disturbing. She looked back at him, feeling almost too much love. It ached like an open wound.

She didn’t want to leave him like this. But she had no idea what to do. Maybe he only needed sleep. She certainly could use a few hours. Or days. Finally, she settled on a kiss.  
When her hair brushed his face he sighed, shifting slightly and, before their lips could meet, he spoke.

“If they get back in touch…if you talk to Rose…tell her I lo…tell her…” 

Her heart gave a lurch. “Tell me what, Doctor?” she murmured.

His whole frame jerked as if he’d just fallen into the bed and he opened his eyes. He blinked several times. And then pursed his lips and breathed out, “Oh, what a rush! What a ride! What a buzz…I’ve got going!” Rose smiled. He smiled. “My first orgasm,” he gleefully confided, eyebrows climbing toward his hairline. “Can you believe it?”

She honestly couldn’t. “You’re first?”

“Oh, yes,” he assured her, nodding very carefully as if any sharp movement or loud noise might break the spell of their mutual bliss. He spoke with the measured awe of a parishioner at Mass. “Convergence. Climaxing…coming…it’s like that isn’t it? A great current…rushing,” he pushed the last word through his teeth and clawed at it with one hand, “Coming…like I was surging toward you and through you.” He relaxed, sighing happily. Rose pillowed her head on his shoulder as he went on, “Do you know, I think I saw the future? It felt like the future, all bumpy and blurred. But I was just...hanging there. Rose, I do believe I had an orgasm, looked into my own navel or third eye or what have you and saw the future looking back at me. And how’s that for afternoon delight?”

“Was it truly your first ever?” she murmured lazily as the post-coital lethargy stole over her again. “I thought you’d had sex…lots of sex before…”

“Sex. Yes. Intercourse. No. Convergence. Never. All of it was forbidden, remember?”

“Oh…okay,” she said, not really understanding but willing to let it go. She could let everything go for a little while as long as the Doctor was alright. “You’re alright, then?” 

“Alright? My, God,” he breathed, ever so softly, “I feel…fabulous…delighted. Is that why they call it that, do you think? ‘Afternoon delight?’ Probably, hey?”

“Probably,” she murmured sleepily. Relaxing at last, she cuddled into his side, all her tension and worry bleeding away. She brought her knees up toward her chest, bowing her back. He shifted his hips to accomodate her.

“Oh, Rose," he whispered, "I had no idea. I just kept pushing you through them. One climax. Two. Three. There should be some kind of…of school. Some sort of professional training. You should be licensed to climax, I think.” He stretched his arms over his head and then brought them down around her. Pulling her into his chest, he curled his body to cradle the fetal ball of her. His questing fingers located a blanket edge and he drew the warmth across them both. “I want to be certified, Rose,” he murmured right next to her ear. “I could be top of my class.”

The blissful peace had settled over them again but Rose couldn’t ignore this last whispered declaration. Letting her head drop back against the pillow of his arm, she brought her mouth to his and planted a sweet kiss on his lips. Then, she flashed him her most devilish grin and purred, “Don’t you worry Doctor; I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before somebody, somewhere certifies you.”

 

END THIS PART


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Birds do, bees do it. What in the world did you think you were doing, Rose? Biology takes a toll on the blissful relationship of Ten and Rose. Misunderstandings pile up under a sweet cover of flower petals and Rose gets the shock of her young life. The story takes a sharp turn into AU here, but will remain Canon Compliant. So...let that comfort you as you go on reading...lots of things happened behind the scenes in my version of S2.

PART SIX

A soft touch on the cheek roused Rose from dreamless slumber. She opened her eyes to a pale blindfold and jerked reflexively. The sharp movement broke her from the Doctor’s sheltering embrace and set off a flurry of white flower petals. They avalanched down her body. A falling one kissed her lips as she lifted her head. Others caressed her bare breasts. Shifting her arm, she created a wake of fluttering softness. She glanced at the Doctor as she combed handfuls of petals from her hair. He was fast asleep, buried in floral abundance. His dark rooster-comb of hair stood in sharp contrast to the rest of the monochromatic scene, pale skin dressed in pale petals. Rose turned a critical eye on his latest dream-induced masterpiece.

The vast garden of their room had shrunk to a close bower of constantly shifting vines and endlessly budding flowers. Greenery diffused the light. Rose looked on in amused fascination as seasons cycled by overhead. The rapidly changing arbor reminded her of time-lapse photography. Sprays of moon-white blossoms danced just beyond her reach, budding, blooming and then casting off their petals. The bed was frosted in white petals. Their oddly comforting, if unearthly, scent perfumed the air. Leaves turned to red-brown before blowing away. The bare branches were green again in minutes. 

Delighted, Rose beamed at the Doctor. But, of course, he didn’t stir. The TARDIS only performed this kind of miracle when it could access his dreaming subconscious. Pondering his mental state, Rose settled once again into the crook of his arm. Cheek pillowed on his chest, she enjoyed the show. Purple and yellow birds flitted through the greenery, trilling like cherubim. Their brightly colored plumage flashed between the pale flowers and dark leaves. Rose noticed the shape of the bed had changed. It curved to form a nest of downy soft blankets. 

This, Rose thought, was what it must be like in Heaven, safe and comforting and endlessly interesting. Physically and emotionally sated, you could lie in your lover’s arms while all around you angels worked wonders in their sleep. She needed the loo and a shower but she didn’t want to stir from this spot. The Doctor held her loosely as he slept and smiled just a little from time to time. He was a solid reassurance beside her, warm and soothing. They were skin-to-skin under the drift of snowy petals and Rose felt marvelous. Every breath she drew tasted as sweet as spring water on a hot day. Her body hummed with energy and yet could not be more relaxed. 

Unable to check her impulse, she gently brushed the accumulated petals from his face. She exposed the bow of his lips. Mauve and dangerous she thought and smiled. With exaggerated care, she traced one arched brow, careful as an archeologist dusting soil from treasure. Her fingers trailed across his cheek, outlining its curves and angles. He murmured contentedly, turning to snuggle into her as he opened his eyes. For a long moment, they gazed at one another with perfect understanding and then he grinned. His sweet expression eclipsed the beauty of their new surroundings. It sat Rose’s heart hammering.

Feeling oddly shaky inside and a bit shy, she ducked her chin and nervously chewed on her thumbnail as she grinned back at him. She’d had never been much of a romantic, generally scoffing at her mother’s soap operas and Shareen’s bodice-ripper novels. But it was hard to scoff when your heart banged into your ribcage every time someone smiled. The Doctor took her breath away, literally. She was certain if she ever had to tell him how she felt she wouldn’t be able to speak for lack of air. She would probably stutter and cry. What she felt seemed to go far beyond words anyway. She loved her mother and father and Mickey. How could the same word be applied to this burning need for her Doctor? Whenever she thought of telling him she loved him, tears blurred her vision and she had to swallow against a lump in her throat.

Forcing herself to look away from the relentless pull of his gaze, Rose threw a nonchalant glance toward the arbor. “Someone’s happy, yeah?” she said, bobbing her chin at the beautiful canopy. It had stopped cycling and now held on late spring.

The Doctor misunderstood. Stretching his arm over his head, he gently stroked the wall above the bed as he said, “She is rather. You know, I’ve never heard of a TARDIS responding this way to intercourse.” He pursed his lips slightly as he followed an errant line of thought. “I wonder…if the convergence…? Not that there’s much written about convergence. We should write a book, for future generations…or past ones…the mechanics and psychology of…”

Rose snorted. “Not the TARDIS,” she groaned. Tilting her head, she let her fingers drift down his chest. “I meant you.”

“Oh, me.” He grinned broadly, amused by his own absurdity, and returned his attention to Rose. “Yes, I am, rather. Somewhat giddy.” Lowering his hand to cup her cheek, he murmured, “Did you doubt it?”

She was surprised to discover, upon consideration, she hadn’t doubted it at all. Shaking her head she smiled sweetly at him as she let her fingers play over his soft skin. He was eminently touchable, so different from his ninth self. She circled his navel three times before her hand slid slowly along his waist and then around to his back. Rolling over, she spilled onto his chest, showering him with more petals as her fingertips skated up his spine. His nose twitched as her hair tickled it. Her cheek brushed his when she wriggled into a more comfortable position.

“And you, Rose Tyler,” he declared, using her full name as Gallifreyan convention demanded when addressing important issues, “are you happy?” 

Pushing into a cobra pose, Rose kissed the tip of his nose and then said, “Not bad.” Her gaze dipped to the point where their flesh met. “No prickly skin.”

“Not aroused.”

“Really?”

He shrugged off her doubt. “I have a longer refractory period than a human male. And,” he sniffed, loftily, “it may surprise you to know…exposure to your naked flesh, while pleasant, isn’t particularly stimulating.”

The revelation inspired a slight pout. Rose tugged at her earlobe. Not hurt or displeased but calculating. It was a look the Doctor knew well. Her narrow-eyed gaze glittered. Her teeth worried at her lower lip. The set of her jaw told him quite clearly it wouldn’t take her long to discover what did arouse him. She had an arsenal at her disposal, after all. Even this tenacity stirred him. He simply adored watching her figure things out. 

“My mum was right about you,” she said, at last. 

“Which time?” the Doctor muttered, drawing his fingers through her hair. As he combed errant strands aside others fell across her face to replace them. “Not when she called me a heartless buffoon, I hope. I have an abundance of hearts, Rose. True, not as many as an earthworm or a Zaliglian Soldier but…”

Chuckling, Rose turned her cheek into his palm. “No. When she said you were like the Fairy King, casting your spell on me.”

“Oberon?” The Doctor sneered. “Preposterous…slanderous. She said I snatched children away in the night and left women weeping and gnashing their teeth…”

“By the well,” Rose finished, nodding.

“Trust your mother to confuse Coleridge with the Bible and then just for good measure to toss in a healthy dash of Peter Pan.”

“You are a bit like Peter,” Rose said. “Straight on ‘til morning. Third star on the right.”

“Second star,” the Doctor corrected. “Third star’s Mercury. You’ll end up in another novel entirely. And I’m nothing like Pan. Or Oberon, come to that,” He managed to look perplexed and a little incensed as he went on, “One is a perpetual child. The other a brooder. Do I brood? No, I do not.”

“Not so much since the regeneration. But you did before.”

Mouth pulling tight, he dipped his head to the side, granting her point. “One thing you can't say about me, I’ve never lured anyone away in the night. Well, maybe once. But not a child. Never a child.” He squirmed guiltily as he admitted to, “A stewardess from Brisbane. And once, a very drunk Irishman but he didn’t end up in the TARDIS. Most people just stumble in when I’m not looking and wander off when they’ve had their fill of me.” He squeezed her and brooding slightly, sighed, “You’ll do that one day, I suppose.”

“What? Wander off?” She looked at him in surprise. “Never.”

He didn’t look at her but a slow smile warmed his cocoa-colored eyes. Then the smile melted away into pensive consideration. Brows lifting gracefully, he turned toward her and asked, “What would I do with a stolen child, anyway? Assuming I had the inclination? Strikes me as a load of bother, stealing children." His upper lip pulled back in distaste. "They’d always be underfoot and everything would get sticky. Children tend to be sticky, Rose,” he confided as if he were sharing some nugget of alien wisdom gleaned through years of space travel. “Besides the prepubescent can’t travel in time. It plays havoc with their development.”

“Then it’s settled. We definitely won’t have children,” Rose said, airily.

The words were scarcely out of her mouth when she realized what she’d just implied. In the process of turning her head to survey the canopy again, she stilled and grimaced. Her teeth worried at her lower lip as a hot blush inundated her skin. From the corner of her eye she saw the Doctor shoot her the most peculiar stare and cringed inwardly. She tensed for the rejection she was certain was coming. But the Doctor seemed speechless. Both of his brows arched and his mouth flapped as if he meant to question her but couldn’t think of where to begin. 

Rose spoke before he did. “Waking up like this,” she continued, with enough blithe perkiness to hide any telltale tremor in her voice, “I can just about see Mum’s point though. Sort of makes me feel like a fairy princess.”

“You’d be Titania,” the Doctor corrected, very close to her ear. Rose shivered as another wave of prickling of heat swept over her. 

Before she could think how to respond to him, he startled her with a sudden bray of laughter. His whole body shook with amusement. “And that would make Mr. Mickey…Bottom,” he announced, happily, “Ha. He is rather. A bottom.” Offended on her friend’s behalf, Rose forgot her momentary befuddlement and lightly poked the Doctor’s shoulder in a futile effort to make him stop guffawing. After a few more sniggers, he forced his face into a semblance of sobriety and managed a tense little, “Sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I’m not. I’m sadly unrepentant.”

“Mickey is not an ass. He’s the sweetest person I know,” she chided, loyally.

“What about me?”

“You’re not sweet at all.”

“See how you’ve changed your tune? You, Rose Tyler, are inconstant. I was sweet enough for you last night.”

“I’ve always thought there was something Puckish about you,” she said, avoiding all of the deeper emotional questions. She fluttered her hand as she added, “You know with the ‘I am the merry wanderer’ stuff?”

“Did we see A Midsummer Night’s Dream?” he asked, surprised by her ready references to the play.

Rose shook her head. “The Khalraxi revolted remember? We read it after.”

“I made you mulled cider,” he recalled. 

“Because my fingers got frosty,” she added, smiling. 

“Holding high the banner of revolution,” he finished. “How many times must I tell you to wear gloves when you’re picked as flag bearer?” He caught her fingers and carried them to his lips for a series of quick kisses “Strange how people revolt whenever we stop by to take in a play or pick up a ham sandwich. You’d think we sowed discord. And nothing could be further from the truth. Soul of peace and enlightenment, that’s me.”

“Though it would be very Puckish of you to sow discord,” Rose mused.

“No, I shan’t be Puck. I feel Puck is a little too subservient for my tastes. I never was one to take orders. I fly. I flit. All that rubbish.”

“But you do, rather,” Rose grinned. “Flit and fly. Like when you’ve successfully calibrated the time rotor, yeah?”

“Yes, but Oberon,” he mewed plaintively, bouncing a little like a child wheedling a treat from a reluctant nursemaid, “Much more…majestic. And a very snappy dresser. Can’t you see me striding about in the Cloak of Shadows? And, now I think on it, I have indeed heard mermaids singing to calm the seas in dulcet tones. And while the stars didn’t precisely shoot from their spheres, there may have been a meteor or two. Of course, I was in a very fine restaurant at the time not perched on a promontory. Still, we could stretch the point.”

“I’d like to see a mermaid.” Rose said.

“Ikalotilus 3,” the Doctor told her. “But not at this time of year. We’ll aim for the spawning season and,” he swallowed an “of course” and went on hastily, “you’ll have to be tied to something solid. Masts are ideal but a good stout oaken beam will do in a pinch.”

“I see. So it’s one of those restaurants,” Rose said, chuckling seductively. 

Appreciating her innuendo, the Doctor snickered and swiveled his hips, making her jiggle and slide. She clutched at his shoulders, triggering his arousal response as she laughed against his skin. The warm enticement of her joy acted on him the way her naked proximity would on a human male. It inspired him to pounce. Gripping her arms just above the elbows, he rolled to pin her. She squirmed. He straddled her hips and kissed her soundly. 

They tussled, playfully pushing one another. Rose found his most ticklish spot and dug her fingers in. He tossed his head back, laughing so hard he tipped over. She wriggled free and tossed a handful of petals at him like a snowball. He reciprocated and for a few giddy minutes the air whirled with white petals. 

Sweeping under her guard, the Doctor pulled Rose into his body, hugging her tight until she surrendered. She sprawled across his lap, her bum settling between his thighs, and they spent an exquisitely peaceful few minutes in the middle of the bed murmuring nonsense to one another before the Doctor drew in a sharp breath and broke away from the embrace.

“No, honestly,” he said, slithering around her and down to the foot of the bed. “I can’t have you falling hopelessly in love with one of the sea-folk, casting yourself into the surf. Think of the inconvenience. I’d have to learn to scuba dive again," he grimaced at the thought, "it’s been…literally… centuries…and then there’s the bartering.”

“I could see how it would cause you a lot of trouble,” Rose said, crawling after him.

“Merfolk drive notoriously hard bargains. I might have to fight a duel or go on a hopeless quest or some such to save you,” he said. Glancing back at her, he added, “Time we were up. Get dressed. Run to the loo and then meet me in the console room. I have something to show you.”

“Do you always say that on the morning after?” Rose asked, giggling. “’Get up, get dressed and meet me in the console room…I have something to show you,’” she quoted. “You said exactly the same thing the last time.”

“Did I?” The Doctor’s brow furrowed for a second and then he tilted his head and beamed. “I did. Yes.” He waved a carefree hand. “But that thing is not this thing. This is a totally different thing.”

“So, what was it last time?” 

“The burning moons of Androgolfus,” the Doctor said, as he stooped to pluck his shirt from the floor. “Considered to be one of the fifteen most romantically beautiful sights in this or any other galaxy.” He recovered his trousers, shaking them free of leaves. “More people get engaged under the light of those moons than on all the gondolas in Venice,” he went on as he dressed. “That rift in time was only a short hop away from them. But I’m afraid I got rather distracted. Cybermen. Mickey. A tear in the fabric of existence.”

“You had a busy day.”

“I did. But one day we’ll go back there. I know you’ll adore it. Literally, scores of moons and smaller satellites orbit the three planets in the system. And all of them, the moons, burn with a perpetual fire. Nothing can extinguish them but time. Can you imagine how lovely it is, Rose, fire in the cold heart of space?”

Rose watched him search for his left shoe and finally gestured toward it. “By the desk,” she said. “So, these moons burn," she tugged at her earlobe, "but how can there be fire in space?”

“Some fires don’t need oxygen. The moons themselves fuel the fire. The Androgolfus System was once home to the galaxy’s most productive Dilithium crystal mines and then one day....”

“Dilithium? Like on Star Trek?”

“Exactly like. Dilithium crystals are highly unstable but for centuries they were the only natural resource powerful enough to fuel the big dreadnaughts and luxury liners of the Great and Beneficent Federation of United Planets. The Federation ruled most of the Horsehead Nebula for about 300 years, give or take a decade. Until one day there was this huge uprising of the labor force and…”

Rose wasn’t interested in uprisings. “I thought that was just…for television. The Federation and all. Go on, tell me, are there Vulcans?”

“I thought you knew,” the Doctor said, offhandedly. “Or suspected, at least. Since you’ve called me Mr. Spock and you know all about the,” he flashed the hand signal for ‘live long and prosper’ as he said, “Mind meld. I had young Mr. Roddenberry on board for a short time.” Rose gasped and he rocked up onto the balls of his feet, happy to have surprised her, “Oh yes,” he grinned. “Though I can’t say he took much of what I showed him to heart. I’m hardly emotionless. And he called the TARDIS a poor excuse for a starship. Good job for him we were on Earth at the time or he’d have spent the next forty years working in some burger joint on Alpha Centauri.”

“You wouldn’t have abandoned him.”

“In my Sixth incarnation? I certainly would have. But I didn’t get the chance. I simply shut the door in his face and took off for parts unknown and the rest…

“…is television history,” Rose concluded.

“Indeed. But I did take the young reprobate to Androgolfus and I explained all about the Dilithium mines. When Androgolfus exploded…”

“It exploded?” 

“Sabotage,” the Doctor clarified. “A single nuclear blast ignited the crystals in a chain reaction. Blew the mining planet to bits and created all of those moons. Terrible loss of life.”

“Not you, then,” Rose gathered, climbing gracefully out of bed. She drew a sheet with her, wrapping it around her like a toga as she cleared the arbor. 

"Me?"

Seeing his affronted glare, she spoke defensively, “You’ve been known to blow up things you don’t approve of,” she reminded him. “Weapons factories, cyber labs and the like. But not if there were people.”

“There were people,” the Doctor confirmed solemnly. “I tried to help them but I arrived too late. Terrorists. Attempting to disrupt the fuel production.” He stared beyond her, replaying the horror in his mind. “Such beauty born from tragedy.”

Rose gave his arm a sympathetic pat as she padded past him on her way to the closet. She bent to pull knickers and a bra from the storage bins lining its back wall. Tipping his head, the Doctor drew his gaze along her curves. She had the most inviting aura he’d ever encountered. He couldn’t help but admire it. Almost couldn’t resist the urge to hold her. What was happening inside her body at that very moment astounded him. He took an involuntary step toward her.

“I need to take a shower,” she said, standing with clothing pressed to her chest. “Will this thing you want to show me wait an hour?”

“Tahitian Waterfall?” he suggested in a singsong way that was practically fawning. He had his head back, his tongue at the roof of his slightly open mouth. His broad smile was infectious.

Tahitian Waterfall was their absolute favorite bathing environment. Jack found it one day while exploring and insisted the Doctor and Rose join him for a dip. The room had deep warm pools for soaking and swimming and hot rocks for basking. It had slick mossy slides and several cascades of cool, clean water for rinsing off soapy residue. 

Rose chuckled indulgently. “Oh, no,” she said, with faux perkiness, “I don’t need any privacy. You can tag along.”

“Privacy is for private stuff. Not baths,” the Doctor whined, following her out the door like an eager pup. 

It was an old argument and they fell easily into their roles, each taking a side. When Rose had balked at sharing her bath with the Doctor and Jack, they’d united in stubborn solidarity against her. Her cultural taboos, it seemed, were provincial and unhealthy. They eased her toward sophistication. To that end, each of them made it his mission to wander in on her as soon as she started showering. The intrusions weren’t remotely sexual which, in Jack’s case, was a bit of a miracle. They were, instead, designed to overcome her shyness. 

Both the Doctor and Jack came from cultures with communal baths. They enjoyed the camaraderie and they wanted her to enjoy it, too. They treated her like one of the guys. Stripped down and suds up, they would speak casually of daily routine. It took her a few weeks to get over blushing and gaping while clutching a towel to her breast. But there came a day when she stopped slinking about and ducking behind things. One day she cast off her towel and dived into the pool. A week or so later she took Jack up on his daily offer to wash her back. After that it wasn’t long until she was completely at ease lounging naked with two attractive males. 

But things had changed. For one thing, the new, new Doctor developed his own kind of shyness. One she now understood was related to her touch. He'd been desperately avoiding arousal. For another thing, given the Doctor’s insistent proximity now that he'd moved past his shyness, the shower proved intensly erotic. 

He twined around Rose, slipping along her soapy skin like an otter down a mudslide. She quickly gave up on hygiene. Casting aside her sponge so she could hold onto him. Pressed against a hot rock, the fine cool spray of the waterfall painting rainbows above her, Rose opened to his probing fingers. Let him stroke deep. It didn’t take much to bring her to the brink of ecstasy. But he would keep kissing and nuzzling and licking her randomly. He had a particular fondness for the water droplets collecting in the hollows of her collarbone. He dipped them up like a hummingbird sipping nectar. Groaning in frustration, Rose resolutely directed him to her breast and held his head in place to offset his natural inclination to roam. To his credit, once the Doctor understood what she needed, he applied himself diligently until she broke into tiny pieces under him.

Twenty minutes later as they were toweling off and dressing, their playful argument over privacy had spiraled into a true battle of wills. 

Rose spoke with a firmness that belied her trembling knees. “We can’t keep bathing together,” she told him. “Things have changed.” 

“Yes, but not to make you more ashamed,” the Doctor sighed. “Intimacy should remove barriers not erect them.”

“It’s not…”

“Your body, Rose Tyler, is an amazing feat of nature. Orgasms. No, rolling orgasms. Digestion. Elimination. Respiration. Cellular rejuvenation. You should celebrate every nuance of life. Share the beauty of it with the universe. Not hide it away.”

“Perhaps I’ll parade about starkers from now on,” Rose suggested.

“And why not? You’ve nothing to be ashamed of. Even now...at this very moment…your body is creating…”

“It’s not shame,” Rose inserted forcefully. “It’s…,” she hesitated, searching for a way to explain without offending him. It crossed her mind to blurt out the truth. She couldn’t get enough of him and she was feeling completely distracted. But if she said that he would only grin madly and pull her back into bed. “Look…like you said, ‘fewer barriers.’ We live together, we sleep together…we do everything together…I’d just like a little time for me every now and then.”

“And this? This is your me time?” The Doctor sounded doubtful, “Ten minutes a day in the shower?”

“One of them. Or it could be. Why not?”

“Because baths aren’t really private are they? And they only last so long. You’ll get prune-y if you try to make Tahitian Waterfall your haven. Why don’t you just go back to your room?”

Rose winced. “To stay?”

“No,” he said. His heaved a put upon sigh so she’d know she was testing his patience. But, after shrugging into his suit jacket, he took her hand and peered into her large doe-like eyes. “I don’t want you to leave. Ever. I’m not trying to make you leave. But when you get the urge to leave...and you will. When you’ve had your fill of hearing me go on about nothing in particular and you need a break. Go to your room, close the door and I’ll take the hint to give you some time and/or space.” He nudged her shoulder with his and happily declared, “Time Lord: It’s what I do.”

“Yeah, I guess I could do that as well. But what I’m saying is sex isn't an open invitation to every part of my life. Since Jack...since the regeneration...I've enjoyed showering alone again. And I might want to do it still...every so often.”

He dropped her hand. “Fine. Eat alone. Sleep alone. Be alone. I don’t care.” Turning he strode out the door, his entire wounded attitude belying his words. He cared very much.

Rose rolled her eyes and muttered, “Jus’…every so often.” 

She knew he was manipulating her. These well choreographed tiffs were designed to tweak her heartstrings. He needed reassurance. Not as much as he had before his regeneration. But he was painfully, comically, transparent about it now. He asked for comfort. And she couldn’t bear to hurt him so she rushed to the doorway, calling out, “Didn’t you want to show me something?”

She discovered him just outside the room, leaning his shoulder against the wall and waiting for her like a five-year old runaway waits at the curb certain his loved ones are coming. He smiled insolently. 

“Probably already missed it,” he chirped. “Still we might be able to see something if we hurry.” Waving a hand at her, he said, “Go on. Get dressed,” and then, he pushed off the wall and, hands in pockets, started sauntering away.

“Couldn’t we just go back in time?” she suggested already turning back into the room to finish dressing. 

“Not just now,” he shouted back, “Events are moving apace.” His voice echoed a bit with the distance he’d gained on her. “Andale, Andale, Arriba!”

Hearing his shout bounce, Rose doubled her dressing speed. She jerked on jeans and shoved her feet into shoes even as she yanked a hooded sweater over her head. 

“Coming,” she sang, darting into the hall and running after him.

Even with her burst of speed, he beat her to the console room. He was standing by the monitor, rocking back and forth, heel to toe, when she rushed in breathlessly. He cast a brilliant smile at her before turning his attention back to the monitor. 

“Glad you could make it,” he said without a trace of his earlier anger. 

“What is with you and cartoon mice?” she asked.

“Over there,” he commanded, ignoring her rhetorical question as she often ignored his. He pointed vaguely toward a panel containing several switches. The panel also housed the usual clutter of bells and balls plus a gelatin mold and an inverted ice-cream cone. “Wrap your right hand around the Minulous Stabilizer. Hold it firmly but don’t squeeze.”

She cautiously approached the console. “The who?”

“The inverted ice-cream cone,” the Doctor said with a sad shake of his head. “I’ve told you about Minulous, I’m certain of it.”

“I didn’t know I’d have to stabilize it,” Rose said, moving to obey his command. “You might have stressed that in the lesson.”

The Doctor’s brows rose as he stared at her. “He was the inventor,” he intoned with pedantic solemnity. “Gregor Pixiliacious Minulous.”

She couldn’t hold in her mirth. “I know,” she burbled, delighted with his exasperation. “I was just having you on.” She closed the distance between them so she could lean into him as she said, “Gregor Pixiliacious Minulous invented the temporally transcendent viewer which....” Squinting, she struggled for a second to recall and then, with a small flourish of her hand, triumphantly concluded, “Stabilizes a window on future or past events.”

“Ha,” the Doctor said, enormously pleased by her recollection. “Exactly right.”

“The Stabilizer is one of the eight pieces of advanced technology scavenged by the Time Lords from other species to make TARDIS travel more comfortable and/or efficient,” Rose went on, showing off.

“Wrenched out of time and space, pirated, if you will,” the Doctor added. Grinning at her, he clutched at the air avariciously. “That’s what we were, Rose, temporal pirates. Only we didn’t go pillaging. We didn’t do anything.” Nudging her with an elbow, he gleefully confided, “We just stayed home and…lay around.” He managed to stop snickering when she walked away, shaking her head as if he were her eccentric old uncle. 

“Anyway,” he drawled his exuberance fading only slightly. “Almost there. Put your hand back on the stabilizer. Now squeeze. Firmly. Gently. Yes. There we are.” Whistling a few bars of “The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything” he made one or two adjustments. Then, he slapped the monitor on the side, causing it to wheel around in front of her, as he proudly announced, “Exactly thirty-six minutes ago. Convergence.”

Rose focused on the display before her. It contained a streaming set of the circular Gallifreyan cuneiforms, whole paragraphs of writing in one circling shape. But she couldn’t begin to read it. So she concentrated on the image. It looked like an old fashioned arcade game in progress. Space Invaders, she thought. A vast array of tiny ships had surrounded a large planet. It seemed like a hostile stand-off to Rose. 

“Is it…a war?” she guessed. “Some kind of invasion?”

“No. Not a war. Though…there are similarities to an invasion.” Unable to restrain his enthusiasm, the Doctor bounded around to her side of the console. Leaning into her shoulder he, too, stared at the monitor. “That’s us,” he said. “This is you." He pointed to the planet. "And this,” he swept his finger in an arch to indicate the fleet of tiny ships, “is me. And we…are about to converge.”

“Converge,” Rose repeated turning the word over in her mind as it slowly melted on her tongue. 

“Merge. Join together,” the Doctor murmured into her hair. “One life from two.”

Rose stiffened, peering intently at the screen. The tiny ships were arrowing down. One pierced the surface of the planet. The monitor image flared as the solid orb of the alien world shivered. The world divided in two and then divided again. 

“Oh…hey…that’s not…I mean, you aren’t saying…?” She released the stabilizer, shying away as if it had scalded her. The image on the monitor froze and then faded. “You’re saying that’s us? Your ships? My planet?” Rose demanded, stabbing a shaking finger at the blank monitor. “Physically converging? Not some spiritual thing but…sperm and egg? I’m not…I mean, I can't be…” She nearly gagged on the idea but managed to cough it up, “Pregnant?”

The Doctor dropped his gaze to her belly, critically assessing the time. “Just about thirty minutes on, give or take a millisecond. I was right about that shower. We missed the big moment.” He beamed at her. “New life. It’s a miracle. It’s a wonder. It’s a girl.”

“No,” Rose said, shaking her head. 

He raised his line of sight to intersect with hers. “Oh, yes. Can’t mistake the chromosomes,” he reached out a hand to the monitor, flipped a switch and the images returned. “See here. No ‘Y’. Definitely a girl. What do you think of Etta for a first name? I always fancied Etta for a girl.”

“No!”

“Too old world?” A frown creased his brow and his mouth twisted into a pensive line as he picked up on her anger. “Doesn’t have to be Etta.”

“Stop it,” she ordered, imperiously. “Stop giving it names, making it real. And do something! Right this minute! I can’t be pregnant.”

He cocked his head at her. His wet crest of hair gave him a look of bird-like confusion. “But you can,” he nodded at the monitor, “because you are.”

“I mean, I don’t want to be.”

“You don’t want…? But...we just had sex…lots of sex…” His voice cracked as he yelped, “Don’t you think you might have said something when I first brought up the idea? ‘Oh, and by the way Doctor, I don’t want to become pregnant.’ You couldn’t have said that before because, honestly, it’s a little late now she’s already here.” 

“How was I supposed to know what you were on about? Converging? I thought it was some Time Lord thing like the darts or the dreaming.”

The Doctor stabbed a finger toward the interior of the TARDIS. “Intercourse is a universal precursor to conception. How could you not know that? Were you found under a cabbage leaf?”

“I know about sex and babies…that’s why I take precautions. But I just thought with you being so…alien…”

“I told you about Omega…all of those human women conceiving.”

“You also said everything was all different now. Seems to me you got most of it wrong. First with the arousal and now this.”

“I was in your mind, Rose. When I climaxed. When this,” he indicated her belly with an open-fingered gesture, “happened.” Moving away from her, he sputtered, “How…? Why…? No!” He held up his hand, palm toward her, two fingers extended. “How? How could…you even…? How is it possible to go through all we’ve gone through together…and not know what it meant? Not feel…anything…?”

“I feel things,” Rose cried, wiping a hand across her suddenly stinging eyes. “But I…I just thought we were…getting closer.”

“Closer?” he barked, momentarily immune to her distress. Mouth open, he gaped at the ceiling, silently repeating, “Closer,” before dropping his gaze back to hers.

Her stricken expression forestalled whatever he’d been about to say. It cut to his core. Fighting the urge to go to her, hold her, he covered his eyes with one hand, pressing the fingers to his brow ridges and pinching the bridge of his nose as if warding off a migraine. His dimple appeared when he pushed a long, harsh sigh through his clenched teeth. She didn’t understand. Obviously. Inhaling again, he wiped his hand down his face to his throat. He stared into space for a moment, breathing heavily. Then, eyes widening, he straightened his shoulders.

Turning back to face her squarely, he started over, “You didn’t want to converge? Despite what you said to the contrary?”

“Are you stupid? Or just completely lost in your own alien world? Obviously we’re not getting through to each other. I wear a patch,” she fumbled for the tiny square of contraceptive reassurance. Finding it on her hip, she twisted around to show him. “Why do you think that is?”

“Stupid? The little girl is calling me stupid,” he said, sounding remarkably like his ninth incarnation. “When she apparently has no idea intercourse can lead to pregnancy…with or without a,” he waved a dismissive hand at her hip as he sneered, “patch? What? Was it all some kind of game to you? I was in your mind. You were in mine. Didn’t you sense anything? Or when it comes right down to it is it all about transient pleasure? Typical human reaction…shortsighted…”

“Don’t start in on my species,” Rose said with steely coldness. “I asked you if we needed protection. Something beyond the patch. You’re the one who misunderstood.”

His face twisted into a mask of disdain. “Protection?” He repeated in a hysterical register. Then, as the light dawned, he glanced down at her patch again. “Oh, of course,” he breathed. Gritting his teeth, he dropped his head back and groaned, “Prophylactic protection.” His eyes glazed over as his attention turned inward for an examination of his motives. “I did misunderstand. Why?”

The answer came too quickly. He wanted to believe in Rose. The weight of his mistake crashed down on him. He’d been completely naïve, expecting her to feel the way he did about this wonderful new life. Sex was nothing to her. True Union little more than a drugged sleep. She’d shared her bed with Mickey and several others. She would have offered her favors to Jack, given a bit more encouragement. She wore a patch. To avoid any permanency. Any ties. He’d been a fool to link his life to a human child. She would leave, tire of him, just like all the rest had done. Did he think somehow she’d stay forever? No, he was alone as he’d always been. Only now, it hurt to breathe.

Focusing on her again he said, “You meant…protection against unwanted pregnancy…not injury or disease?” Rose smiled a tight, sickly smile and gave a few very tiny, very rapid nods of her head. “Stupid of me,” he sighed.

“Like I said,” she snapped, twisting the knife. 

“You might have been clearer.”

“I shouldn’t have to be. You’re the one knew where all this was leading. Some things need a little discussion. Before you shot me full of neurotoxins, before you started any of this, maybe you should have asked if I even wanted children.”

“You don’t want children?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“Look at us. Look at me. I’m 20 years old. Single. No job. No stability. I just started living my own life. And you? You can’t sit still for five minutes, let alone stay in one place for nine months. Look at what we do. We travel through time and space, getting into trouble every other stop. We nearly died twice last week. And you said kids can’t travel in time, just this morning we said no children.” 

“Oh!” He brightened considerably as her concerns became clear to him. “Obviously, no. We aren’t going to keep the baby. Raise it here in the TARDIS. That would be impossible.”

“We’re not going to keep…? What the hell does that mean?” 

“We can’t keep it with us. I thought you understood that from our earlier…but, of course, you didn’t,” he sighed. “Alright, then…it’s like this: Time Lords don’t have children. I mean, obviously, we have children. We reproduce. Or we did at one time, before everything stopped working. But we never kept our children onboard a TARDIS. It’s not safe. There’s background radiation. I’ve mentioned the radiation. Perfectly harmless to an adult organism but catastrophic for a developing one. And then there’s the dangers…as you mentioned…”

“You knew that and you just…let this happen?” Rose’s hand dropped to her belly in an unconsciously protective gesture. “What are we going to do?”

“Send her somewhere safe. Back in the day, before the war, we would have sent her to the Looms. A sort of crèche. That’s were I was raised. By Penelope and the other nurses. But since the Looms are no more…I was thinking we could send little Etta to Sarah Jane.”

“Sarah Jane…? Smith?”

“Is there any other?” the Doctor asked, rhetorically. “She’ll make a wonderful mother, don’t you think? Provide a good home. Stable environment. Excellent income. Lots of affection. What more could you ask for? We can pop in for a visit any time. And a child will give her a bit of company in her old age. She confided in me that there’s small chance she’ll have one of her own. Works out perfectly all around.”

“Except I’m not leaving my baby to grow up with a complete stranger,” Rose growled. 

The Doctor was already setting coordinates but her adamancy gave him pause. “Not a stranger,” he said, “Sarah Jane.” Seeing the flash of maternal zeal in Rose’s eyes, he hastily added in a very small voice, “You know Sarah Jane. She’s…almost family.”

“You know who else is almost family? You and I. You’d abandon your own child. Do you have any idea what it’s like growing up without a father? Because I do.”

“But she’ll have a father…parents. Know them…us. We’ll visit. Constantly. Christmas and every birthday and when she’s old enough to travel with us safely…”

“We’ll steal her away from Sarah Jane? It is just like Peter Pan. My mum had it exactly right. She’s your Wendy. And oh, god, my mum,” Rose groaned, suddenly seeing her mother’s reaction in her mind’s eye. “I show up pregnant with an alien baby she’s gonna go mental.”

The Doctor grimaced and scratched an ear. “Well. See. I thought of that and not to take anything away from Jackie but…”

“But…? But…what? Don’t you say anything against my mother. She did okay raising me. Better than your precious Sarah Jane would, I’d wager. And how do you know Miss Sarah Jane Smith even wants a baby?” His startled, somewhat guilty, expression was all the answer she needed. “You don’t, do you? No, you’re just merrily playing God with everyone’s life today. Omega’s got nothing on you. Might as well carry us off by force when you feel free to dump us anywhere you please. Stick us with unwanted, unexpected babies.” She stalked toward the TARDIS interior but paused to cast one final comment over her shoulder. “And we’re not calling her Etta.”

Numb as a man battered by the surf, the Doctor gripped the edge of the console and stared after her for very long time before quietly suggesting, “Margo, maybe? Perhaps.” He placed a hand to the back of his neck and rubbed the tense muscles bunching there. Then, lifting one brow, added, “Or else…Eloise.” 

 

END THIS PART


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor and Rose continue to bicker about parenthood and how to do it. Both of them are stubborn, but love wins out as Rose starts having a more complicated pregnancy. Things are about to take one of the darker turns, so hold on to your top hats.

PART SEVEN

The Doctor was versed in 178 forms of interpersonal combat. He knew Tae Kwan Do and B’Ksal Duc. He’d trained with UNIT Special Forces and studied pugilism with Gentleman Jackson. Though he had a marked aversion to weaponry of any kind, he enjoyed developing new skills. To that end, he’d studied marksmanship with Annie Oakley and learned to fence from the Grey Mouser. He couldn’t remember who had schooled him in the broadsword, only that it hadn’t been Fafhrd. That worthy gentleman had been serving a long jail sentence when their paths crossed. (Part of the deal with the Mouser had involved the Doctor arranging for Fafhrd’s release.) He had a passing proficiency with throwing stars and boomerangs. And Master Ran Et’Sunkimi, the beautiful Ninja Warlord of Belisaria, had instructed his fourth incarnation in the arcane art of militant calligraphy. Oh, yes, he could pen a snippy letter so sharply worded it would cut a reader to the bone. 

But he could not fight with Rose Tyler. Not really. He didn’t know how to fight with her. He’d had some vague idea once, before the regeneration, but one kiss had burned his knowing away. Even Nine, his warrior self, had had a difficult time holding out against her. “I know how scared you are,” she’d once told him when he’d threatened to leave her. And he was scared, even now. Of losing her. Of facing the cosmos on his own. Of what he might do without her mercy to guide him.

Whenever she displeased him, he kept silently remote. But even cat-like aloofness only served for a very short time. It would not withstand one beckoning glance from her starry eyes. He loved Rose, more than should even be possible. He’d sworn an oath not to tell her, but the feeling was no less real for all his silence. The extent of his devotion left him close to tears from time to time, because it always moved hand-in-hand with the thought of one day losing her. He longed to keep her with him forever and he had the power to do so. But using that power went against everything he stood for. If he was nothing else, the Doctor was the champion of free will, never putting his subjective desires first. He never mentioned his feelings.

But she had to know. 

He did, after all, violate the spirit of his oath, if not the letter of it, every day. For one thing, he could never establish a sobering distance between them. His sleep disorder was only the most obvious manifestation of his weakness. In unguarded moments he’d found himself drifting closer to her. When he tried to avoid her, he failed. She exerted a pull he could not resist. It reeled him back into her orbit whenever he was tempted to stray. He was constantly nudging her shoulder. In this context, her jealousy of Reinette or Sarah Jane or anyone else was laughable. She needn’t fear losing him. If anything, she should worry about having him underfoot for the rest of her life. He was like a tiny ship to the bright beacon of her sun. 

A minute or two after she stormed out of the console room, he followed. He caught up with her as she reached her old room, but before he could do more than say her name, she slammed the door in his face. She opened it again to tell him in no uncertain terms to take her home. The door closed a second time and he stood there numbly, hearts hammering and stomach churning. He’d told her to close him out of her life by going to this room. Now she’d done it. She’d shut him out. She hadn’t precisely said she was leaving him, but the implication hung in the air between his nose and the firmly closed door. The thought of life without Rose made him physically ill. 

He’d always avoided thinking about the inevitable day when she would be gone.

If this were the day…then it would be his fault.

Self-recrimination left a bitter taste in his mouth and squeezed his hearts together. As he drew in a shuddering breath, a sharp pang stabbed into him just below his navel. He rubbed his belly, frowning down at it and absently wondering if he was going to be one of those weird fathers he’d read about who go through sympathy pregnancies. Maybe it was the hummus sandwich he’d had at the party. Then, again, maybe it was something to do with true union. Maybe in the distant past all Gallifreyan fathers felt what their partners felt. It might explain why Omega begat his children on Earth women instead of his proper companion. Not for the first time, the Doctor wished he could still consult the long dead Time Lords for their wisdom. Pain hit again.

Wasn’t it too soon for cramps?

He tapped on the door and called plaintively, “Rose?” 

A moment or two later he knocked again, louder.

“Go away!” she shouted.

“There’s no call to be rude,” he shouted back and then, in a voice that probably didn’t carry to her, added, “How’s your stomach?” 

She didn’t answer. He leaned against the door and easily picked up the waves of raw emotion surging along the tributaries of their psychic link. It wasn’t like Rose to be so unreasonable. He’d seriously miscalculated her attitude toward family. Or toward him, he mentally amended. He’d been so sure she’d be happy. Eyes closed, cheek pressed to the cool door, he experienced her sense of betrayal. She was hurt and confused, not just irate. She’d trusted him, and somehow he’d failed her. He reached for the door handle, gripping it firmly for a moment, but then let it go. He could think of nothing helpful to say. Hopefully, she just needed a little time alone. Sighing, he pushed away from the door, telling himself he didn’t care about this, couldn’t care about it. She was being childish. But she had the right to be childish without interference. 

Hands in his trouser pockets, head hanging low, he scuffed back to the control room. Turning every second of the last two days over in his mind, he searched for some clue to her antipathy toward having a child out there somewhere in the universe. He was in the middle of setting the coordinates when his control snapped. He indulged his own anger, bashing his way around the console. This wasn’t completely his fault. Rose had domesticated him, made him part of her family. Every word. Every gesture. Every look she cast at him said she loved him. Every stray thought he picked up from her mind told him she’d never been happier. 

Union in blood was the only eternal union for a Time Lord. How could she reject it so utterly? It would cost her nothing but a few strands of DNA. Could she be so adamantly against children? Or did she want them only on her terms? It crossed his mind quite suddenly that left to her own devices Rose might abort the child. Wasn’t that what her people did with unwanted pregnancies? They even had a pill to do it cleanly, painlessly.

He grew angrier, colder, still at the thought. He couldn’t allow that. Not when there were so many other options available to them. But he also couldn’t make her submit to any of those options. Couldn’t make her do anything. She had as much right to decide the child’s fate as he did. What he could do was tell her the truth. He wasn’t about to settle into domesticity in some temporal backwater. He wasn’t going to endanger the Earth and neglect his duty to a hundred thousand worlds just so she could raise their child to be a proper little primate. 

It would do no good at all to force human behavior down little Etta’s throat. Having a mum and dad to coo over her would only shake her confidence. Make her unable to travel alone through time and space. And she would want a TARDIS. Rose couldn’t outwit genetics. Other people had tried. Omega’s children had ended up on Gallifrey, every last one of them. Penelope had done her best to make the Doctor more human. But she’d only succeed in instilling desires he could never fulfill. He wanted things no Time Lord should ever want. A life he could never have, probably never tolerate, without going slowly mad. He wanted a home.

Rose wanted her mother. 

Fine. So be it. He stubbornly fixed their course for Earth, her planet, her time. She wanted to leave him? Her choice. Not his. He couldn’t say, “But I love you” or “Please stay.” A Time Lord should love everyone…equally, wholly and without prejudice. No selfish love allowed. No wanting things to be different. No interference. Free will for all.

But this wasn’t the end of the argument. Like it or not, Rose Tyler was the mother of his child. He’d already interfered with her. As a Time Lord he was duty bound not to change the course of her world or her life, but what else had he been doing? Taking her away from home? Taking Mickey away from her? Touching her? Bonding with her? Impregnating her? The truth was he did nothing but interfere.

And now their child would suffer for it. Unless…he took it all back. He could put Rose into the dream state. Take the baby somewhere safe. Wipe the memory of her from Rose’s mind. 

He could almost hear his old enemy, the Master, chuckle at the thought. “Are we so very different, then, Doctor?” he seemed to sneer. “You, the champion of free will. How convenient your piety is!”

Appalled by the mental comparison, the Doctor turned his back on temptation. Whatever Rose decided, he would support her right to choose. She was his…partner…not a child to be protected. And besides, he wasn’t sure he could suppress her memory. She’d let things slip recently about the Time Vortex, as if she recalled harnessing its power, despite the barriers he’d put up to shelter her from the memory.

Rose puzzled him, intrigued him. She was minimally educated and no brighter than the top fifteen percent of her contemporaries. But she had a mousetrap of a mind. It snapped down on tiny details, held onto ideas until she could make sense of them. He supposed they were alike that way, not the cleverest in their class but certainly the most unpredictable. 

With the proper training and tools, Rose might even become a Time Lord one day. She had a soul uniquely suited to time travel. She didn’t belong on the Powell Estate any more than he did. She would wither and die in that stifling place, performing a pointless duty and longing to be free of it. He couldn’t allow her to ruin her life and the child’s and his. But he had no idea how to stop her. He certainly couldn’t keep her against her will. 

But, it turned out, the TARDIS could. 

He’d braced to jump time streams, when the rotor stalled. He pounded a panel with the side of his fist. Nothing. He ducked under the console to check for loose wires. Everything looked okay. Frowning, he resurfaced and took a few readings. They’d landed, but not on Earth. Not anywhere close. He stepped to the door, opening it a crack to survey the frigid atmosphere outside. Against all reason, the TARDIS had planet hopped in the same solar system. They'd traveled no more than a decade beyond their last stop. The Doctor considered the history of this region. There was no trouble brewing anywhere nearby. There was nothing nearby but the wildlife refuge he'd hoped to explore. Why were they stalled?

Maybe he’d simply miscalculated the refraction angles. He had been distracted. He reset the navigation field and once again pumped, dinged and punched in data. The central rotor shunted into action. When it stopped a few moments later, the Doctor groaned in frustration. They’d barely moved. They were still a thousand light years from Earth and at least twelve centuries behind Rose’s time. Outside the TARDIS was another inhospitable rock, a barren asteroid in Orion’s belt. 

Forcefully closing the outer door, the Doctor glared at the machinery thrumming under the gratings beneath his feet. “We can’t keep her,” he said, firmly. 

The ship burbled something and the console-mounted monitor flashed a brilliant white.

“We’re taking her home,” the Doctor insisted, stripping off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves in preparation for a fight with his ship. “Her choice. Free will and all that…rubbish.” Stroking a column as he strode by, he softly added, “She needs her mother.”

The TARDIS made no further protest. Neither did it purr in agreement. At the console, the Doctor pulled the monitor around to face him. This time he intended to make sure his instructions were processed to the letter. No more automatic systems. He switched everything to manual control. But before he could begin entering coordinates, he noticed the spinning circles under the last image of Rose’s embryo. He read the message twice before it sank in. Numbly, he tapped a button to replay the clip of the convergence. 

As he watched the miracle unfold, a disembodying feeling of alarm crept up on him and pounced. He’d seen the images before, but somehow the wrongness of them hadn’t registered. There it was again: cellular division. Less than thirty minutes after conception. Every lesson he’d ever had, every scrap of information he’d ever read, on human reproduction zipped through his head as the monitor displayed a warning again: cellular division anomaly…DNA replication accelerated…initiate temporal dampening field immediately. 

He said it quite softly at first. “Rose?” But as he spun about and sprinted down the hall toward her room, he let his swirling emotions power the shout.

“Rose!”

He skidded to a halt at her room. Her door stood open. There was no sign of her. He tried their room. Nothing. The kitchen and the gym also proved fruitless. Finally, he put his hand to the wall and asked his ship where she was. The answer came intuitively…in the shower.

He should have known.

***********************************************************

“Rose?”

She heard him murmur her name, outside her door, but stubbornly refused to answer. Could she not have one minute’s peace? His ship. His rules. Her eyes burned with tears again as she zipped open her rucksack to pack. She’d trusted him completely and he hadn’t even considered her feelings. Any more than he’d ever considered her privacy. He’d dragged her out of bed and out of baths, forced her out of a job and even refused to respect her wishes about Mickey traveling with them. 

But her body was her own. Or it had been until he started slipping into her mind and making her dreams come true. She’d kept her illusions though, until this morning. She’d believed she was his partner, an equal. Now she knew better. And there was no escaping him. He was in her mind and her heart and something of his was growing inside of her. 

The reality of an alien pregnancy nearly overwhelmed her. She crossed her arms and sank down on the edge of her bed. Packing forgotten, she rocked, her heart hammering with claustrophobic zeal. She wasn’t ready to give up her own life. She’d just about pulled free of her mother and Mickey. She’d just started putting herself first. Being pregnant meant going back to thinking about another person’s needs. As her mind whirled, the walls of her room began closing in on her like a winepress on grapes. For the first time since she’d initially come onboard, Rose saw the TARDIS as alien. The scent of the processed air and the ever-present roundels made her skin crawl. Everything said Time Lord. She couldn’t bear it.

She decided to go back to the Tahitian Waterfall Environment. Greenery obscured the walls there. The natural setting always soothed her nerves. She fled as soon as the Doctor abandoned his vigil at her door, telling herself she just needed a moment or two to adjust. But what she really wanted to do was hide from him. When he started shouting her name, she remained silent. She knew he would find her eventually. He always did. But this time she wasn’t going to help him. Let him shout the roof in. He could learn what it felt like to be ignored. 

Her clothes were damp and chilly from the spray of the waterfall but Rose didn’t care. Perched on a rock, she skimmed a bare foot over the surface of a deep, still pool and then scooped up a handful of pebbles to toss into the water. She threw the tiny missiles in one at a time. They created concentric rings, which intersected in patterns reminiscent of Gallifreyan script. She remembered how she’d scribbled nonsense as a child and thought it was cursive. Now she thought she spotted the symbol for the number eight in these random patterns. That’s what she was to him, an ignorant child. She wasn’t even literate in his world. Small wonder if he felt like taking charge of everything. 

She’d felt so clever traveling the stars. Sure she could handle the consequences. Death seemed like a pretty big consequence…and she’d faced it down several times. But it turned out death had nothing on new life when it came to scaring her silly. She was pregnant. With an alien baby. And not just any alien. The second coming of the Time Lords. There were probably prophecies about her. She probably had some nickname like his Oncoming Storm. Maybe Bad Wolf? What big eyes you have, Mum?? Had the Doctor planned this since the day they’d met? Certainly, he’d known it could happen. And he’d chosen not to tell her.

How many different kinds of stupid had she been? Falling in love with an alien, letting him take her away in his magic machine, giving up Mickey and her old life for…what? Adventure? Thrills? The most amazing sex she’d ever had? A man and a love like no other? Did he love her? He’d never said. But in unguarded moments he’d touched her in a certain way. Not just physically, but spiritually. The love was there in his eyes and his mind. He’d shown her the peerless beauty of the stars, sharing wonders with her the way a lover might share choice morsels from his plate. He hadn’t treated Mickey or Jack or even Sarah Jane with the same sort of deference. 

Rose shook her head. What did it matter? Maybe he did love her, but it wouldn’t change anything. If she’d learned nothing else from her mother’s struggles, Rose had learned that love didn’t conquer all; her father had died despite loving her mother. Rose had decided very early on not to have children. Life was too uncertain. Feeling sorry for herself, Rose sniffled. It seemed to be her destiny to live her mother’s life all over again. So many of her neighborhood friends had ended up pregnant and alone. But Rose had always been careful and, yes, scornful of those who weren’t. But all of her precautions. All of those stern internal monologues. All of her mother’s dire warnings. All of it…had come to nothing. 

For the first time, Rose truly appreciated how scared her mother must have been, newly widowed with a small baby. How had she coped? Rose tried to envision it, piecing together stories she’d heard all her life with this new insight she’d been granted. Her mum had taken in washing and worked as a home hairdresser. But Rose lacked her mother’s homemaking skills. Jackie Tyler had relied on friends and relatives to baby-sit. Grandma Prentice had helped out. Rose sighed. No Mickey. And she’d barely spoken to Shareen in the last two years. Her mum would help, of course, but it would be a hard road without little…Oh, so help her, they were not going to call her Etta…without the baby’s father.

Rose had no illusions about the Doctor staying with her or even visiting. He’d never gone back to see Sarah Jane, and she was the one he wanted to be his child’s mother. The Doctor belonged to the universe. Rose had come to accept that. She’d gotten over being jealous but she hadn’t gotten over her fear of losing him. Still, she knew him well enough to know he would never settle down. He certainly wasn’t going to turn his back on his duty as a Time Lord to help her raise a baby he’d planned to give away. And she couldn’t travel with him again until their child was at least fifteen or sixteen. By that time, she’d have arthritis and he’d have a new companion. 

Rose tossed another pebble into the water. If she worked the night shift at one of the motorway’s all night diners maybe her mum could watch the baby. They’d be on the dole but they might cope. But what if the baby had two hearts or needed some kind of alien vaccination? What if it was a difficult pregnancy? She wouldn’t be able to go to hospital. These dire thoughts brought her back to some semblance of reason. She shook her head again.

“He would have thought of that,” she mumbled. Oddly comforted by the imaginary tragedy, she lightly touched her abdomen and whispered, “Don’t you worry. The Doctor won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Indeed, I won’t,” he said. 

Startled, Rose glanced up to see him leaning against the door frame on the far side of the room. He looked quite angry. His chin was high, his dark eyes blazed. The fingers of his right hand were pressed to the wall. The TARDIS had ratted her out, told him she was in the Tahitian Waterfall environment. Rose mentally cursed the busybody ship as the Doctor pushed away from the doorway. He headed for her at a determined pace, fishing the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket with one hand as he started to climb over rocks. Rose scrambled to her feet and backed to the edge of her perch. 

“I don’t want to talk to you,” she said, in a brittle tone. “There’s nothing you can say to change my mind.”

“Yes. All right,” he said, mildly. “We needn’t talk. But I wonder if you would mind terribly not talking to me in the infirmary?” he asked. “Also, I need you to answer a few questions. Short answers will be fine. How’s your head? Are you in any pain?”

Before Rose could summon a response, he was at her side. He cut around her like a sheepdog herding a flock, seized her arm just above the elbow and started retracing his steps, hustling her along before him. 

“Let go of me,” she declared, digging in her heels.

“Yes. All right,” he repeated in the same meek way as he released her. “Hold very still,” he ordered, looking directly into her face before returning his attention to the screwdriver. She did as he asked, stewing silently while he recalibrated the sonic device, pointed it at her navel and swept a tight blue beam across her abdomen, turning her yellow sweater momentarily green. Then, he aimed the screwdriver at her temple and took another reading from it. Grim faced, he turned abruptly toward the door. “Come on.”

“Wha’s wrong?” she demanded, holding her ground. When he tut-tutted, she snapped, “Tell me.” 

Plainly agitated, he whirled back to face her. “Children can’t travel through time, Rose, as I’ve said. There’s radiation, background, foreground, mid-ground…there’s…temporal distortions, gravitation anomalies, alien parasites,” the list of dangers knotted in his mouth, making it a trial to speak, “Peril on all sides. Little…” he stopped dead on the name, dipping his chin vaguely at Rose’s midsection, before pushing out, “…not-Etta…is having some difficulty. We’ve stopped. I need to be sure she’s stopped, as well. I need to get both of you to the infirmary. Run a few diagnostics.” Refocusing on the screwdriver’s new reading, he distractedly asked, “Any nausea? Lightheadedness?”

“No and no,” Rose said without really considering the questions. Truthfully, she had been feeling a bit queasy. “What do you mean…stopped?” The Doctor shot a piercing glance at her but, after a tiny shake of his head and a long suffering sigh, turned away without answering. “What is going on?” Rose peeped. “Doctor…? Are you saying…? Is there’s something wrong with the baby?”

She stared after him in exasperation as he strode toward the door. Finally, moved by her curiosity, she trotted after him. Teeth worrying at her lower lip, she tried to make sense of his concerns. What could he mean by ‘make sure the baby had stopped?’ By the time they’d reached the hallway, she’d worked it out. As she started putting his current actions into context with his earlier warnings, icy tendrils of apprehension crawled along her arms. She hugged herself against the chill. 

“Traveling,” she whispered then spoke louder, calling to him, “Do you mean traveling, Doctor?” When he kept walking, she put on a burst of speed, bounced around in front of him and demanded, “Doctor, do you mean she’s still time traveling…inside me?”

He halted so abruptly Rose had to trip to a stop and come back to him. 

“Are you talking to me or not?” he asked. “I’ve lost track.”

“Oh…of all the…just answer my question.”

“Yes. All right.” 

“And stop saying that…all resigned to your fate and everything,” Rose countered. “You sound just like my Great-Aunt Mabel.” 

“Aunt Mabel?” the Doctor snarled. “Oh, you are very lucky I don’t…” he began, angrily but he caught himself in time. Sighing, he broke eye contact to stare into the middle distance for a beat. His shoulders slumped a little. When he looked back at her the fire had left his gaze and he was her sweet Doctor again. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not trying to be difficult. Or…no…I suppose I was trying…but I understand you have a right to know what's going on. I just don’t have any answers, yet. I don’t know enough about what’s happening inside you. Etta…the baby… appears to be developing too quickly.” He consulted the screwdriver once more. “I’d say you’ve gone through about four days of your pregnancy in just under two hours. But we need to be sure of those figures. Infirmary,” he repeated, dropping a hand to the small of her back and steering her along again.

As they traversed the halls, the reality of her situation sent sweeping chills all over Rose’s body. They snaked up her arms and then down into her stomach. There the crawling sensation solidified into a great chunk of Titanic-sinking ice. She shivered, hugging herself. But she still didn’t see the problem with an accelerated pregnancy. 

“That’s not so bad though, yeah? At this rate it’ll all be over in two months.”

“Oh, it will be over much sooner than that,” the Doctor said, “If I try to move this ship. You’ll both be dead before we’re halfway to Earth.”

“Dead?”

“What do you think would happen if someone tried to cram a half stone of baby into your abdomen just now?” A shadow of fear crossed Rose’s face, dulling her usually bright eyes. She shivered again. Seeing he’d frightened her, the Doctor stroked his hand up her back. “It’s not that bad yet,” he said gently, “We’ll try to fix it. But you’re going to need to have an open mind about this. I’m not sure what we’ll have to do to save you both. You’re not changing, Rose. Only the baby is.”

“I’m not changing…?”

He gave a terse nod as they made the turn into the infirmary. “Your womb needs to prepare for a fetus,” he went on, pointing her toward the examining tables before leaving her side. “That doesn’t happen overnight. Given time your body would slowly adjust to accommodate the growing baby.” He started opening drawers and cabinets. “Your organs would shift into new alignments, making room. However, just now…your body is under attack. And it is fighting back with every anti-viral in its arsenal.”

“That’s why I feel chilled?”

“Yes. And why I am in pain.”

Still standing at the door, Rose looked at him in surprise. “You’re in pain? But…?” 

“Psychic link,” he murmured. 

But he offered no further explanation. Instead he returned to her side and guided her to the nearest elevated exam table. He patted it so she would hop up. She did as he indicated, sliding her bum back to make herself more comfortable on the warmly cushioned surface. The Doctor went back to locating supplies. She watched silently as he fished assorted instruments out of various cupboards, lining up what he’d found on the countertop. Some of the tools looked more like torture devices than medical implements. A wave of nausea splashed over her and she saw the Doctor grimace, his hand dropping to his beltline. 

“Sorry,” she muttered.

“Not your fault. And I imagine labor is much worse,” he said, trying to sound chipper.

They both inhaled deeply and exhaled again in perfect synchronicity as the discomfort eased. “I suppose you are a real doctor?” Rose inquired meekly. She’d heard him make the claim at least a dozen times but never knew if she believed it. 

“Oh, yes,” he declared breezily as he stooped to retrieve a suitcase-sized machine from a lower cupboard. “Board certified on seventeen worlds…including Earth. Medical College of St. Bartholomew, Class of 1892.”

“1892? Have you taken your continuing education classes?”

“Been a little busy,” the Doctor replied. “Which means…unfortunately I am about as useful as a whale-bone corset in this emergency. And,” he sighed, “my specialty was definitely not obstetrics. Or…to put it another way: I don’t know nothing about birthing no babies.”

Rose would have smiled if she hadn’t been so frightened. “What are we going to do?” she asked, watching him open the suitcase machine like a tackle box, folding out level after level. 

“Ideally? Get you to hospital. Preferably one of the earlier xenobiological ones on Gallifrey. Only we can’t. I can’t go back there without perpetuating disaster. Although…I suppose…,” he drawled, rotating at the waist to study her for a moment, “We might send you down to the surface alone…I wonder…” Giving his head a quick shake, he went on with his work, saying more briskly. “No. Far too dangerous. Anything could happen to you. Besides there’s no point in speculating until we solve this current crisis. We can’t move the TARDIS without killing you. Lie down, please,” the Doctor said as he extracted what looked like two plastic bangle bracelets from the top level of the suitcase machine. Each of the bracelets had a kite-tail of wires. “Try to relax,” he added, crossing to help her into the right position on the table.

After he’d shifted her a little, he snapped the plastic bands around both her right wrist and ankle. A few deft pokes of his fingertips set the wrist monitor flashing and beeping. Rose lifted her arm to look but he firmly forced her hand back into position over her navel and ordered her to lie still. 

She complied, though her expression told him her patience was wearing thin. He gave her shoulder a pat before bouncing back across the room. Rose watched him consult the equipment. He could feel her eyes on him. And the diagnostic scanner seemed to be malfunctioning. Irritated, he fiddled with dials, tweaking the settings. The scanner was acting like it had never seen a human being before. The Doctor adjusted the band on Rose’s ankle and then retreated again to the cupboard. The scanner started pouring forth data. He squinted at the tiny screen and then at the larger print out before pulling his glasses from an inside jacket pocket. He gave the lenses a quick polish and, settling the specs onto his face, started reading. 

Rose tried to relax as requested. The longer the Doctor took the harder it became.

“The good news is the latest developmental stage appears to be holding,” the Doctor finally told her. “You’re very close to implantation but there’s been no change in the embryo since we stopped moving.” 

He glanced over his shoulder at her. His grim expression made her sit up and ask, “What’s the bad news?”

Crumbling the printout into a ball, the Doctor sighed. ‘Just like Aunt Mabel’ he thought but what he said was, “The bad news is you’ve got a rather high fever and we could be stuck on this asteroid for a very long time. No fuel for the TARDIS, no medicine or food to sustain us.” Snatching off his glasses, he settled his hip against the countertop. He tapped one earpiece against his lower lip as he illuminated the extent of the crisis. “We could theoretically last for a couple of years, rationing our current supplies. I could shut down all the auxiliary systems; jettison redundant rooms, etc. to conserve power. Proper nutrition would certainly become an issue at some point. But, provided there were no pregnancy complications, we could theoretically save your life.”

“But…?”

“But there are already pregnancy complications. And we would need to stay here much longer than is even theoretically possible if we hoped to save our child. Not only through the birth, but until she is old enough to time travel.”

“So we’re stuck.”

“We’re stuck. But on the bright side,” he added, with a heavy dose of sarcasm, “we will all be one big, happy, nuclear-age family when we starve to death.”

“Can’t we just…I don’t know…send a distress call or travel through space but not time? Find food…supplies? A proper doctor?”

“Yes, of course, but it takes time to travel through space,” the Doctor said, “even for a distress signal. Centuries in fact. Traversing light years in the blink of an eye is no easy task.” He folded his glasses back into an inside jacket pocket and began rummaging in the cabinets again. Pulling down a blue bottle, he read the label. Then, he shook a pill out into his palm. Crossing to Rose, he offered her the tiny pink tablet. “Here. Take this.” She pinched the pill from his palm but instead of swallowing it, eyed it warily. The Doctor didn’t appear to notice her discomfort. He went on explaining, using the bottle and his hands to act out the concepts, “The TARDIS travels quickly and easily from one world to another precisely because she can travel in time as well as space. There are other ways to travel, straight loop wormhole transduction, for example. But they would be just as risky. We are able to bypass the longer routes and minimize our risks by shortcutting through the temporal dimension. This keeps the…” he broke off to bob his chin at the tablet between her fingers. “Go on. Take it,” he urged. “You’ll feel better.”

“What is it?”

“Aspirin.”

“Really? Oh.” Embarrassed, she popped the pill into her mouth and swallowed.

“Well. No. But nearly,” the Doctor continued smoothly, turning away from her to place the bottle on the counter. He adjust a few of the dials on the suitcase-sized device. “It will do the same thing: lower your fever.”

Rose’s temper broke like an overstressed levee. All of her outrage and betrayal spilled into her voice as she cried, “That’s what I mean! Exactly that.” 

As she leapt down from the exam table, the Doctor whirled to face her but he fell back a step, when she closed on him, unsure how to respond to her evident anger. “You would rather have a fever?” he guessed.

“No. But you can’t just give me something and lie to me about what it is. I know you’re smarter than me. Older. Wiser. Better educated. I know, maybe...you get tired of explaining things. But this is serious. This is real. Do you get that? Why won’t you tell me what’s going on? You’re nothing but secrets. Do you think I wouldn’t understand? How much effort does it take to say, ‘This could get you pregnant’, ‘this medicine is used to bring down fevers?’ Do you think I’m…what? Stupid…? A stupid ape?” Her voice cracked as tears glistened in her eyes. “I’m like a…a pet or something?”

“Pet?” he gaped. “A pet? Why would you think…? Is that what this is about? You think I look down on you? Honestly, I don’t,” he soothed, completely thrown by her outburst. He reached for her, took her face in his hands. “Rose, you can’t think I would…” he glanced down, carrying her gaze with his to her navel, “father a child on a…on someone I…on a…pet?”

“I can’t even read,” she countered, tears finally spilling over her lashes. 

“Yes, you can,” he argued, letting his hands drop to her shoulders, steadying her. “I’ve seen you. We’ve read things together…Shakespeare. Dickens. Electronic Shaver Directions.” He gave her a few comical nods, “And, you’ll remember, I could make nothing out of those.”

“Not English,” she groused, impatiently, “Time Lord.”

“Gallifreyan,” he corrected.

“Your language,” she clarified, moving away from him. “Whatever you call it. I can’t read my own name in your language. I can’t count. Never mind flying the TARDIS. I’m here at your mercy and…”

“I’ll teach you to read,” he promised but then immediately recanted, grimacing and scratching his ear. “No, I won’t. Because you have to develop the sight first and you haven’t. Gallifreyan script is pan-dimensional. That means…we don’t use tenses. There’s no past…future…imperfect…because the relevance of a particular word, even a particular letter is intrinsically linked to when and where it appears. To read my language properly…you have to be able to see around corners. You have to know when and where you are.”

Rose sighed. She didn’t even understand his explanation. “It’s not just the reading. The point is that’s why you don’t explain things properly, you don’t think I’m smart enough. Because I’m not like Madame de Pompadour or any of your other…companions.”

“No, no,” he said, adamantly, “That’s not it at all. You're very bright. And it’s not fair you saying I don’t explain things, because I do…constantly running off at the mouth, tha’s me. But explanations take time and we…”

“What? Don’t have time?” Rose said, bitterly. “You just said we have nothing but! We’re stuck here, right? Until you figure this out? Maybe you should take a little time to think about what you’ve done to my life.” He reached for her again, knowing that one touch would calm her, but she swept her arm in a dramatic arc, forcing him back. “All of this? This is your life. Your ship. All of it says…Time Lord. Everything here is alien. And yours. Your ship. Your rules. Your way of doing things. What about what I want?”

“You want to raise this child as a human,” he inferred. “You and I and her, little…” he aimed a terse nod at her lower abdomen as he forced out, “Not-Etta. A proper Earth family with mum and dad and a…a car…with a…a,” he wrinkled his nose, looking positively ill, as he slid the bitter word off his tongue, “car-seat. Or a…what? A baby onboard sign in the rear window?” 

Rose shot him a sullen glare. “I didn’t say that.” 

“But it is what you want?” the Doctor insisted. “The domestic package.”

“What I want is to not be pregnant,” Rose corrected. “What I want is to have my life back and no choices in it involving you or…not-Etta or anyone else.”

“Yes, well, it’s a little too late for that now, isn’t it? You’re her mother. We will always be her parents. We can’t change that, Rose. The question is what kind of parents are we going to be?” 

“No. No. That’s not the question. This is…it’s…bigger than what to do about the baby.” Rose bit down on her lower lip, shaking her head. Her fingers curled, grabbing at the air, as she searched for a way to clearly explain her frustration with this one-sided relationship. “This is about us, you and me. It’s…” Despite a quaking fear that threatened to buckle her knees, Rose forced herself to ask him for what she needed. “It’s like the shower, yeah? You and Jack between you decided I should be okay with sharing.” Afraid to look at him, see him rejecting her plea for equality, she began to pace off the small area between the door and the exam tables. “My way was wrong and as far as you were concerned, I should just get over it. So I did. I changed. You wanted Mickey onboard and you didn’t care what I thought about it. Now, he’s gone. Now, I’m expected to deal with your baby. Change everything about who I am and what I want. I don’t want children. Do you get that?”

“Yes, of course, but…”

“No! You don’t. I know because you just assume this is all going to go your way. I’ll go along because that’s what I do. Calling her Etta.” Her voice turned shrill. “You never even asked me about children. We never sat and talked about this because you… you either think I’m too stupid to have an opinion or you just don’t care what I think. What I want. It’s like I’m nothing but a noise in the room. Someone to keep you company. No thoughts of my own.”

The Doctor stared at her, his mouth open. His breathing turned ragged as he fought through his initial, visceral reaction to her complaints. He hadn’t been expecting anything close to this and the surprise caused his respiratory bypass to kick in. A hundred retorts log-jammed in the back of his throat. But nothing came out of his mouth. He stood very still as he processed his feelings, his attention fixed on Rose. He studied her face. Saw the truth of what she was saying in her eyes. Then, he lowered his head and sank back against the edge of the counter, bracing his hands behind him. Staring at a spot on the floor midway between them, he murmured, “Is it like that?” 

“It feels like it.”

The room faded away as he considered her grievance. Was he selfishly forcing her to do all the adapting? Of course not. Obviously not. He’d changed so much in the last two years. Changed to please her. Regenerated to please her. He was barely Gallifreyan now. He’d been domesticated. Gone to Christmas dinners. Had afternoon teas with her mother. For the love of all that was holy, he’d worn a paper crown on his head. But she had no way of knowing what he’d been like before. How cold he’d been in the face of emotional commitment…closing the door on Susan, abandoning Sarah Jane and Tegan…and Ace. He’d mourned them, of course. But not like he would mourn Rose. Rose would leave a scar behind when she left him.

Even knowing him a little as he’d been, she didn’t see what he’d become because of her. She must have assumed some of the more obvious changes were due to the regeneration. Or maybe she’d failed to notice the changes because they’d started as soon as he’d taken her hand in that shop. He thought about her reaction to Sarah Jane, putting it into this new context. “You felt this way about her once,” she’d said. Did Rose really believe he’d cared about Sarah Jane the same way he cared about her? 

He glanced up to find Rose watching him warily. She actually looked frightened and that cut him to the quick. “I’m a Time Lord,” he told her, as if saying it explained everything.

“I know,” she sighed.

He shook his head sharply. “But you don’t,” he said. “That’s just it. You don’t understand what it means. And how could you? You don’t know what we were like. What I was like…before I met you.” She drew in breath to contradict him again but he forestalled her by crossing quickly to her side and taking her hand. “Please, Rose. Let me tell you. Sit down for a minute and we’ll talk this out. I promise I’ll listen to you.”

Rose closed her eyes. It was on the tip of her tongue to deny him, to say she didn’t want to sit down but he grazed his fingertips along her cheek and her resistance melted. If they were ever going to get past this, they would both have to give a little. Opening her eyes, she looked up into his. He seemed so concerned, so earnest in his appeal. She focused on his mouth, moistening her lips as she remembered kissing him. He was such a tender lover, almost always putting her first. Just this morning she’d trusted him completely. He smiled as she relaxed and gently pulled her into a hug. She let her hands slide up his back. Then, she turned with him as he guided her to the exam table. They both hopped up and sat, side by side. But they remained silent for a good while, the Doctor toying with her fingers. 

Finally, he asked, “What do you want to do about the baby?”

“I don’t know,” she breathed, shaking her head. “I wasn’t pregnant yesterday. Isn’t there some kind of...?” 

She felt his fingers twitch and stopped herself before she could ask him about a morning-after pill. As much as she wanted this to be over, she couldn’t seriously imagine aborting the Doctor’s baby. He wanted it too much. On the other hand, she didn’t want it at all. The thought of it filled her with bitter dread. Maybe Sarah Jane was the answer. 

He nodded as if he’d heard her unspoken musings and they sat quietly, again. After a long pause, he said, “None of this would have happened to you if I hadn’t interfered in your life.”

“We don’t know that,” Rose said, a while later. “Maybe I’m…supposed to be a mum…but I’m scared.”

His next contribution to the conversation took them down a side road. “Time Lords don’t share,” he said. “We don’t ask permission to do things. We’re like tigers or…or polar bears, solitary...with all of time and space our territory. From the moment he’s able to walk until the day he dies a true Time Lord has no need for company. I’m a bit of an anomaly, you see? A misfit.” Rose smiled slightly, favoring him with what he considered an adoring glance. He longed to ask her what the look actually meant but this wasn’t the time. He sighed, and she slid a hand down his leg to gently squeeze his knee.

“But you’re not like them.”

“We were apex predators on our home world and wholly untrustworthy. We preyed on the universe until we were forced to withdraw from it. Do you see, Rose? We withdrew from the universe for its own good? Time Lords don’t do domestic. Why else do you think we’d have to drug our females before mating with them?”

“Yeah, I wondered about that.”

“It’s because we can’t bear to be that close to, that…open with, one another. We are so lacking in trust we must literally be mentally linked before we can reproduce. And, oh yes, I am very much like them. Or I was for nine hundred years. Nothing touched me. Always okay…” In a voice so soft she could barely hear it, he added, “Until I met you.”

Rose didn’t know what to say. The Doctor she knew was a force for good in the universe. She’d seen him angry, hard and cold with it. But she’d never believed he would harm her or anyone else. He’d told her he was responsible for the death of all his people but it couldn’t be that simple. He hadn’t been able to destroy the Daleks, knowing he would also destroy the Earth. And Sarah Jane Smith had loved him before, several regenerations ago. So, despite what he said about how he’d changed, he’d always been the Doctor. He was generally unarmed, if not exactly defenseless, and almost always benevolent. And maybe he didn’t share his feelings or his thoughts with her. But he was hardly a xenophobic loner. He cared about others. He’d had any number of traveling companions. Who were these people of his that they were so unlike him? 

“Even our society, the peaceful republic we were so very proud of, existed only because of our blood ties. Each of us was mentally linked to every other Time Lord through our clans.” He nodded pointedly. “And through selective crossbreeding each clan was joined to every other. We learned to get along, but our benevolence was nothing but an illusion. We were xenophobic to a fault, first using other species for sport and then completely isolating ourselves. Every cultural exchange was steeped in ritual. Without our rituals, without our culturally imposed ties and stifling formalities, each of us would become, quite literally, a law unto himself. That’s what I am, Rose. A renegade. The Penelope Experiment proved that beyond any doubt.”

“I thought…wasn’t she your mother?” She immediately corrected herself, “I mean, I know she wasn’t your real mother but she raised you.”

“Yes, she did. She was…very important to me. But she was only part of an experiment. One designed to see if other species could influence our behaviors. There were ten of us in her care…The Master, The Rani, The Pearl, The Cat, The Monk…”

“The Doctor,” Rose murmured.

“Indeed,” he agreed, giving her a lopsided grin. His voice took on an indulgent undertone as he added, “She couldn’t pronounce our real names.” 

“Well, you have to admit it’s a tongue twister,” Rose said. She took a deep breath and tried to say his name, “Whn’txchat’lle…” He cut her off with two fingers to her lips. 

“No. Never say it,” he admonished. “Forget you even know that name. It’s far too dangerous to know.”

“But I thought…in your mind, I saw you’d just forgotten it.”

“I had. On purpose. I should take it from you, purge your memory. It’s not safe.” 

Bristling, Rose pulled away from him. “What do you mean take it? Make me forget? Can you do that?” It struck her, quite forcefully, that he may already have done it. There was a blank spot in her memory. After she'd looked into the heart of the TARDIS, she'd blacked out. Sometimes she picked at the edges of the blackness like a child might pick at a scab. She'd learned a few things that way. But there was more to know and what if it was the Doctor who had made her forget in the first place? He never spoke of what happened on Satellite 5.

She cast a sidelong look at him. He seemed to have stalled. For a moment he stared into space, apparently lost in thought. Then, he shook himself and went on as if they had never spoken of his name at all. As if the last few minutes had never happened.

“In a way," he said, "I was Penelope’s star pupil. The others were removed from her care quite early on. As soon as it became obvious the experiment was failing. They’d…imprinted on her…picked up certain…personality traits: Human arrogance, cunning, religious zealotry and that endless curiosity. But not the essence of humanity, not the soul of it.”

When he glanced at Rose she nodded her understanding but her mind was still worrying at the puzzle of his unspeakable name. This wasn’t the first time he’d veered away from any discussion of it. There was more to this than the story she’d read so easily in his mind. More to it all than a lonely little boy who’d forgotten his name because nobody used it. What was he hiding? Had someone played with his mind the way he’d just suggested he might play with hers? With some difficulty she forced attention back onto their present problems, saving her questions about names and memories for another time.

“When the others were removed, I was left with her as a…a control, I think. Though, I believe, my family was...what’s the word…pleased? …intrigued? …by my unique development. I became something else. Not a Time Lord. But certainly not human. Impatient with ritual, I craved change. I wanted to know…what was out there. I was chaos in my society, a law unto myself. Just like the Master and the Rani…and all the rest. I stayed with Penelope until she died. She aged. Faded. There was nothing I could do to stop it.”

Rose squeezed his hand, drawing him out of the painful past and back to her side. What kind of parents would allow a child to suffer like that? she wondered and then answered her own question: the same kind who would give their baby to a stranger, an alien. 

“But don’t you see,” Rose said, “This is exactly why we can’t leave our baby with Sarah Jane. She’ll need you to explain all this to her. She’ll be lonely, too. Out of place. Never knowing who she really is.”

“But she will know. I told you. We’ll visit. All the time.”

“Weekend custody,” Rose scoffed. “My best friend, Shareen, yeah? Her dad’s got that kind of arrangement. Comes up every other Saturday and takes her to the country for a few days. But it’s not like she really knows him. It’s not like they can bond on a car trip, is it? Things happen in life and if you miss them you can’t go back.” She laughed then. “Or…I suppose…you can. But what about her first date? When she gets her ears pierced…or her heart broken. We won’t be there to help or see.” 

She slid her knee onto the table, shifting to face the Doctor as she went on, “There were times when Shareen was all put out because her dad had missed a play she was in at school or something, and I’d think I was the lucky one. ‘Cause my dad had a good reason for not being there. What kind of reason will we have, Doctor? Just traveling? And what if…” Again she hesitated not wanting to give her fears voice. “What if…you get another traveling companion? Shareen’s dad remarried and after that he stopped coming up so much. Sixteen years is a long time. Anything could happen.”

You could leave, you mean, the Doctor thought, die…fade into nothing. But he only said, “It’s not going to be sixteen years for us. TARDIS remember? I don’t suppose it will be more than a few weeks. We could hop straight to the end, pick her up the next minute, if you liked. But as you said, there are other things to consider. Her healthy development. Birthdays and…and trips to the zoo…lessons about warp engines…pony rides…all the things little girls care about. We’ll have to be careful not to cross our time lines or she’ll get confused.”

“I didn’t say we were doing this,” Rose reminded him, “leaving her with Sarah Jane. In fact, I said we weren’t going to do that. I’m just telling you why it’s a particularly horrid idea. And you said we can’t do it anyway. Cause we’re stuck here.”

“I’ve been thinking about that, we might travel laterally as you suggested earlier, if I recalibrate the temporal stabilizers. Could kill us? More likely kill the baby? And it won’t get us any closer to the twenty-first century in any case.” He broke off and stared at her with wide-eyed inquiry. “Do you have any other ideas? Other than Sarah Jane, I mean? If you don’t want children…what do we do?”

Startled he was asking her, Rose didn't know what to say for a minute, but then she sat up straighter and declared, “Okay, first things first. We need to find a way to not be stuck. Is there any way you can think of to protect the baby?”

He rubbed his cheek, squinting, mouth pursed, as he thought about it. “If we could isolate her somehow…say we still had a zero room…but we don’t. Maybe we could duplicate the effect…on a small scale…miniscule. I wonder…” Wondering left him silent as he jumped down from the table. Lost in thought, he absently removed the monitor band from Rose’s ankle. “We could…theoretically…travel without harming you or little not-Et….” He’d been walking away from Rose but he suddenly shifted gears, turning back to her to ask, “Why not Etta? Perfectly good Earth name and you’re dead set against it. I might have insisted on something from my own world.”

“Look, we can’t call her Etta.” Rose said, bracing against his offered hand before sliding her feet to the floor. “She’s bound to get teased as it is without giving her a stupid name. Half-alien? She’ll have a hard enough time of it. And she’ll never find Etta on any of the doodads. All those things kids like with their names on them like…I don’t know…plaques for the door and little licenses for their bikes. But mostly we can’t call her Etta because eventually you’d have to introduce us to people. I’m the Doctor and this is Rose and Etta.” She let it sink in for a moment and then, pantomimed the introductions again, stressing, “Rose-Etta.” 

“Oh,” he said. And then tossing his head back he repeated, “Oh! But that's marvelous!” Bending his knees, he bounced a little, grinning as the absurdity of the name hit him. He leaned into Rose’s shoulder in a show of affection, forgetting their argument in the glow of the shared joke.

“Marvelous? Puns on your own daughter's name? Mind you,” she said, nudging him in the side, “Be really funny if, instead of Smith, you started calling yourself Dr. John W. Stone.?”

He pretended to introduce them to company. “Rose…Etta…Stone.” Shaking his head, he reached for Rose’s wrist to unfasten the wired bracelet. “Yes, I can see the problem with that. Might lighten the mood in precarious situations. But...no...I see your point. So, here’s a bit of involvement for you. What shall we call her, if not Etta?”

Rose frowned. “Do we have to name it?”

“Not it…her,” he corrected, with a little pout. “And oh, yes. We can’t call just keep calling her something generic. Like ‘the offspring.” It would damage her psyche. Give her some kind of complex.”

“Like you, Doctor?” Rose said with a smile. “You got a complex, then?”

“More than one,” he admitted, tossing her an affectionate look over his shoulder before giving his attention to straightening up the countertop. “And she’s going to be half-human besides. Humans need concrete identities, Rose.” 

“All right, then,” Rose sighed. “What about…Susan?”

“What about her?” The Doctor asked as he tucked both monitors back into their case and snapped the lid shut on them. 

“It’s a name, isn’t it? Susan.”

The Doctor was reaching up when she said this, putting things away. The blue bottle of pills slipped from his hand and shattered on the countertop. Rose jumped, staring at him with the same startled expression he had just turned on her. 

“Wh-what did you say?” he stammered, his pale skin ashen. “What?”

His pallor and his intent gaze scared Rose. She had to force the words out. “I said…we could call her Susan. But if you don’t like it…”

He charged her, grapping her arms above the elbows and shaking her very gently but also quite pointedly. “Why? Why that name?” he demanded. “Did you read it somewhere? Have I mentioned her? Did you see a photograph or…read it in my mind? Why?” 

“Why what? Who are you talking about?’

“Susan,” he hissed. His eyes showed too much white as he glanced down at her belly. “Why...pick...that name? Why...Susan?” he ground out, between clenched teeth.

“Suzette,” Rose squeaked as he tightened his grip on her arms, almost hurting her. “It's my mum’s middle name, Suzette. I’ve always liked it. But for the plaques and things…” she twisted her body to be free of him but he held on, “…better if it’s Susan, yeah?”

“Oh…no. No, no, no, no, no….” he wailed as he broke away from Rose and staggered to the counter. Clutching it for support, he let denial bend him double. “This can’t be happening,” he insisted. But it was happening. Denying it seemed slightly mad. Pushing back from the counter, he scrubbed both hands through his hair and then threw himself into pacing back and forth. “But it did happen, didn’t it?" he told himself. "It has to happen. She had to come from somewhere. Why not now? Why not Rose? Oh…Rose.” He tugged on the wild tufts of his hair as he recalled how angry she'd been about leaving the baby with Sarah Jane. “This is too much. She’ll never agree to it. Never forgive me.”

“Are you talking about me?” Rose asked, stepping into his path, “Because I’m still here.”

He was too frightened, too lost in the possibilities just around the corner to hear her. Skirting her, he went on muttering and pacing. She blocked him, again, taking his arm. 

“Doctor,” she snapped, “Stop it. You’re scaring me.”

He started to jerk away but her fear reached him. He drew in a sharp breath and then sobered, becoming aware of her again. Meeting her eye squarely, he said, “She’s going to burn.”

It was Rose's turn to jerk back in alarm. Her lip curled as she repeated, “Burn?”

The Doctor reached out a hesitant hand, longing to press his palm to her belly. But he didn’t dare. He stopped short, fingers curling like a wilting flower. He was suddenly afraid to touch her. “Susan,” he nodded at Rose’s navel, “That’s not a random name. You plucked it out of the air. But…I know her.”

“How can you? She hasn’t even been…oh, time machine, right.”

“This means something. Because I didn’t know she was your child. I didn’t know you and my not knowing is a clue. It tells us what to do if we can just think it through. I know one thing: I know I don’t know what happened. And that narrows down the time and the place. And I know how Susan came to be where she was. And that,” he declared, pointing a triumphant finger at her, “narrows down the regeneration.”

“You’re saying you knew our baby before? In another regeneration?” Rose said, putting his rambling comments into some kind of order. 

“Yes, she was older, when I remember meeting her. Old enough to travel in the TARDIS. She recognized me as I was then…as her grandfather. But I didn’t recognize her. All I could tell for sure was that we were blood relations.”

“What happened to her?”

The Doctor didn’t answer for a moment and then he said, quietly, “She didn’t survive the Time War.”

Rose winced. “She died?” The loss was unexpectedly painful.

“She will. For me…she already has. For you…I can’t be sure. All I know is I can’t see her. I can’t touch her. She still exists in the past but if I enter her time stream, she won’t. She’ll burn like the rest of my people burned.”

“But you’re crossing her time stream right now,” Rose protested.

He gave a quick terse nod. “Maybe it’s too soon. I’ve already done this. I did it before, don’t you see? I must have. I must be ‘the Other.’ But I have no idea how..or how long we have. There will come a day, a moment when it’s too late. If we stay here, if we linger beyond that moment…she’ll burn…and so will you, Rose. You’ll both die,” he clarified. “Casualties of the Time War.”

“But if we try to move,” Rose said, getting the complete grim picture, “We’re just as dead.”

 

END THIS PART


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was my favorite chapter to write. It has madness, peril, PTSD flashbacks, deep emotional connection founded on Muppets, and a surprise at the end. Hope you all like it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the New School Readers...surely most of you know this by now...but...just in case...Susan Foreman was/is the Doctor's first companion. She was introduced by him as his grandaughter and refered to him as "Grandfather." There are many theories (some of it book canon...very little TRUE canon) about her origins and the truth of their blood relationship. I am going to use some of the book canon but I will be using it to my own ends. To learn more about what is known/accepted about Susan...follow this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Foreman
> 
> But don't expect you will learn too much that will spoil this fic. ;->

PART EIGHT

_There was a gulf. A gaping hole. A bottomless abyss, opening into the void between realities. A burning rift in time and space. It was mirrored in his mind and soul. He woke up to it each morning, had stared into it endlessly. It didn’t matter if the nothingness reflected blue eyes or brown. The soulless reflection claimed everything. His planet. His past. His people. Everyone he’d ever loved or hated or never heard of or hoped to meet one day. Every photograph fell away, every scrap of paper, every dirty dish. Until there was only the wind remaining, only the sound of things departed. Love and hate and hope rushed toward the rift, slipping by him, tumbling past him into nothingness. He screamed his denial. Screamed until his head ached and his throat bled but there was no one left to hear him. No one left._

_He could see Rose, standing in front of him, a ghostly reminder of all he had lost. It was crushing the life from him to know he would lose her, too. Her lips moved but he couldn’t hear her over the rushing in his head. Any minute now he was sure he would snap back to the asylum, to the thirty-first century doctors and their mental health remedies. Any second now, they would spray a drug into his arm to calm him. Someone would tell him it had all been a beautiful dream, nothing more. They had never found him fit, never let him go. He’d never traveled to Earth or loved this oddly compelling and powerful girl. He was still mad._

Of course, he was. It explained so much about Rose. Her affinity with the TARDIS. Her seamless union with him. Her mother. Surely, Jackie could only be the product of a disordered mind. He’d eaten her nut loaf. Enough said.

But if life with Rose meant insanity, how could he bear to be cured? How could he go back to the cheerful yellow rooms and considerate peering faces and pretend he wanted to stay in their empty world? How could he wake up to nothing but solitude and his soul-mirroring abyss? How could he face that after Rose? 

“Rose.” He breathed her name and dimly heard her say his. 

She seemed to be pleading with him, softly, needing his help. He felt like Orpheus, watching his beloved vanish just as he stretched out his hand to her. Hell would swallow Rose down. And there would be nothing he could do about it. And if he couldn’t save her, he was certain no one would. He had no gods to pray to. That was remiss of him, he realized. There were so very many gods. You would think one of them would suit a lonely traveler.

Of course, godhood came cheap. He’d been called a god, himself. Were there gods for other gods? He didn’t know. He listened intently to the rushing wind but heard not one whisper of divine guidance. A howl of anguish worked its way to the back of his throat but stalled like a hurricane facing a high pressure front. He churned inside but he couldn’t seem to move. 

Eyes stinging with unshed tears, he forced himself to face the empty universe, to turn away from hope and her. It was slow going, like traversing a muddy river bank and there was nothing to turn toward but shattered glass. Lacking motivation, he simply stood and stared at the mess in and around the sink. After a bit, he focused on the blue shards and pink pills from the shattered bottle. He could fix that.

He tottered the few steps necessary to bridge the distance to the sink, and then numbly swept his hand across the counter-top, pushing the debris into the drain. His limbs loosened as they found purpose. His movements became frantic. Again and again, he raked his hand over the shards. Everything would be swallowed by the dark abyss. He would hurry the end along. All things end. All things come to dust. Everything dies. Over and over, he silently chanted her words as he lacerated his palm. 

A stream of water thudded into the sink startling him. But he only flinched a little. Rose had turned the tap on. He processed the information and the droning sound of her voice but neither interested him. The water started spinning, rushing, toward the drain. He found the drain fascinating. It seemed to expand as he stared into it. He saw the streaks and drops of blood but he felt no connection to them, no pain. Not even when Rose seized his elbow and pushed his gashed hand under the running tap did he connect the blood to his torn flesh. 

She spoke again, sharply. He didn’t understand her. Her words came to him as a senseless buzz as she tugged on his arm. She was leading him away from the drain. He ducked sideways, trying to avoid her but she dragged him around to face her. They both stared at his injured hand. He didn’t notice her move away from him, reach for a bottle. He went back to the sink. But when she poured alcohol into his open wounds, he yelped. Reality sharpened all around him and Rose’s tirade came in behind his yip like a car radio flaring back after a momentary loss of signal.

“…all the idiotic things to do. Doctor? Can you hear me?”

 

***********************************************************

 

The Doctor snapped out of his stupor with a yelp. Rose was certain the word he said had a very rude meaning in his language. She admonished him, briskly, “Don’t blame me if it hurts. Running your hand over glass? Of all the idiotic things to do.” 

“Don’t,” he gasped on a ragged breath. Lifting his line of sight, he touched her obliquely with a darting glance. But he couldn’t make his gaze linger. He let it drift beyond her until he was staring over her shoulder like a blind man. “You’re too close.”

“Doctor? Can you hear me?”

“Dead. Everything…gone…burning.” 

He sagged like a wind-up soldier when its clockwork runs down. Tilting her head, Rose stared up into his impassive face. She snapped her fingers in front of him. Nothing. His fringe was in his eyes again but he made no effort to sweep it aside. He leaned heavily on the sink edge, silent, unmoving, and as emotionally distant from her as it was possible to get. His despair was palpable, a monster in the room. It opened an expanse of chilled, isolating, space between them. Rose resented the space even more than she feared it. She wasn’t about to lose her Doctor to a painful memory.

“We’re not going to die,” she said, through gritted teeth. It was all she could do not to snivel. She felt like two people. Inside she was crying for him to return to her while outside she was working on saving him. “Not me. Not the baby.”

“You are,” he choked out. Eyes glistening, he blinked in her general direction as he tried to scoot away from her. He slid along the counter edge and then pivoted toward the center of the room.

“No. Listen.” Wrestling him about was like guiding a drunk, a frustrating and exhausting task, but she managed to draw him back to the counter. “You’re having a flashback. I read about them in that P.T.S.D. book. You’re worried and it’s triggered your war memories. But what you’re feeling isn’t real.”

“I can’t save you. I don’t even know where to begin.”

“But you will know. You must have figured it out before.” He started fading again, shaking his head dejectedly. She seized his shoulders. “Doctor? You have to listen to me.” 

He tried to obey but he seemed to be fighting with his own body. His head moved in series of spasmodic jerks as if commanding his neck muscles took more will than he had left. Finally, he managed to lift his chin and meet her eye. There was no hope in his bleak stare. He shuddered, squeezing his eyes closed and swallowing hard, as if he’d seen her already dead. 

Rose did her best to project confidence. “Whatever you’re seeing…I know it hurts but it’s not happening now. It happened in the past. Do you understand?”

His chin bobbed but he didn’t open his eyes. Though the rudimentary psychic link they shared, she could feel him start to drift away again as he muttered, “You’re in the past.”

“No, I’m here. I’m right here with you. And you’re clever enough to figure this out,” she said, impatiently. “Isn’t that what you’ve always told me? How immensely clever you are?” When he remained grimly silent, she gave him a little shake. “Doctor? Never ever say you were having me on.”

“Never ever say never ever,” he said, mechanically. His eyes opened again only to stare sightlessly toward the drain.

She’d lost him. For a second it shook her. Seeing him wither, become mortal, Rose very nearly broke down. She’d had an absolutely rotten day so far. Her head was killing her. The room kept tipping and spinning. And her Doctor had disappeared into his own mind. It had happened so quickly. Before she’d truly understood what was going on. She had to press her lips together to stop their trembling. Rapidly blinking her eyes, she cleared the stinging blur from them. She wasn’t going to cry. It would be a waste of time and energy. 

She was going to save him. Bring him back from the horror of war. As she set aside her panic, something flared at her center, a burning determination. She remembered how she’d felt when the Daleks were about to kill him and she was light-years away. She’d had this same fire inside. Tylers didn’t just give up. Not her father. Not her mother. Not her. She intended to get out of this alive…with her Doctor…and their child. 

“Doctor, look at me,” she commanded and to her surprise he did. “If this is your Susan…” she touched her belly, “the one you know, well, then…you obviously saved her. Which means you will save her.”

He shook his head. “That’s not how temporal paradox works, Rose. You know it isn’t. If I do the wrong thing…if I make the slightest miscalculation…” Despite an obvious effort to connect with her, the Doctor’s gaze went glassy as he spoke and his sentence died away. His shoulder’s hunched. His wayward fringe of hair flopped forward. 

“But that’s just it,” Rose insisted, breaking into his thought process before it could lead him further astray. “You aren’t doing anything. You have no ideas at all. If we just sit here, doing nothing, she’ll never get to where she should be. So, that can’t be right. Being afraid of doing the wrong thing…is the same as doing the wrong thing.”

“I don’t know,” he whispered.

With a little grunt of frustration, Rose stepped into his partially curtained line of sight. Bending her knees, she peered under his fringe into his eyes. He stared right through her. She lifted her hand to his cheek and gently cradled his face in her palm, fingertips circling. He sighed, closing his eyes. She gave him a hard poke in the ribs with one finger. 

“Ow!”

“Stop thinking about what you don’t know,” she snapped. “You don’t have to know yet. We aren’t going to do the wrong thing until we actually do something.”

“You just said doing nothing was the wrong thing,” he cried. Whirling away from her, he raked both hands through his hair. He felt like the top of his head was coming off and he should be holding it on. “Which is it? Something or nothing?”

“Being afraid and doing nothing is wrong. Taking time to think of the right thing is just sensible.”

“What…?” Blinking too rapidly, he tried manfully to stay focused on her. “What’s the right thing? What do you suggest we do?”

“I don’t know…you....you just…” Caught off guard by his challenge, Rose spread her fingers wide, grasping for an answer. This was what she’d wanted. She’d managed to get his attention. But he was the one with the brilliant mind. What could she say? Or do? What wouldn’t he have thought of already? She tingled when it hit her. “You need a haircut.”

He did. He’d needed one for over two weeks but at first she’d been preoccupied and then he’d wanted to do Elvis. Rose was usually so careful about hair but she’d let his go completely. And now it was out of control. Damp strands of his recently-washed ruffle kept tumbling into his eyes. He’d been shoving his unruly locks aside every few minutes during her earlier examination. Since the flashback, strands had fallen haphazardly into his eyes. Once his hair had started to dry, he’d wished several times that he’d taken time to style it before leaving the bathroom. But it was honestly the last thing on his mind at the moment. Rose’s abrupt change of subject struck him as completely irrelevant.

“A haircut?” he squeaked, not believing his ears. “A hair…how can you...?” His fuzzy gaze sharpened. Rose could feel the twin needle points of it piercing her skin. Nothing cleared his mind like a dash of human reasoning. “Everything’s going wrong that can possibly go wrong and you’re worried about…about my hair?”

“Bit of fight left in you, hey? You’re like a two-year-old about haircuts.”

“Am not.”

“Are so. Always squirming and complaining.”

“It’s just…at a time like this, Rose…lives hanging in the balance…” he swept his arm in a grand arc, “you expect me to sit still and…and let you…?” He pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head, mere words unable to convey the depth of his disappointment in her. “That’s human prioritizing for you,” he mumbled into his palm. “Baby on the way, temporal radiation, possible genetic mutation, starvation, fuel supplies dwindling, I’m going mad and you’re…”

“Worried about your hair, yeah. Know why?”

He cast his hand in a wide appeal to Heaven before lowering his chin to glare at her. “Not really. No.”

“Because I’m not as smart as you are. There’s no hope I will figure out time paradoxes or find a way to stop us starving. But I can do something about your hair.”

“To Hell with my hair.”

“Looks like it’s been there already,” Rose retorted. Though secretly pleased to have him arguing with her, she didn’t let her elation show. Stepping to one side, she cocked her head a bit and pursed up her mouth as she studied him. What she saw made her snort delicately. She circled a hand above her own head and declared, “You’ve got some kind of Pete Burns-meets-Clay Aiken’s-iron-out thing going on up there. It’s dreadful.”

"Oh, come on. It's not that bad." Tilting his head back, he rolled his eyes until they were mostly whites, trying to peer around his own eyebrows. 

“It is. And since you don’t have any idea what to do next, I might as well just go on with my own plans.”

He dropped his chin and focused on her again, this time really seeing her. “Your own...plans?” he declared, over enunciating and screwing up his face as if appalled by the very idea of her having plans.

“That’s what I was going to do today,” Rose told him, “Cut your hair. Right after breakfast.”

Her stomach growled at the mention of a meal. They both glanced down at her belly. Reminded of her delicate condition, the Doctor went through another of his mercurial mood changes. His severe, slightly outraged, expression melted into one of overwhelming tenderness. “Are you hungry?” he asked, all sweet solicitude. His brown eyes were full of soft inquiry when she glanced up into them.

“Starving,” she admitted, “I can’t remember when I ate last. Must have been at the party.”

“Orangeade and cucumber sandwiches,” he recalled. Then, he sighed and with the barest glimmer of improving humor, added, “And you’ve had a lot of exercise since then.” 

“Was that a smile?” she asked, doing her very best to imitate his post-regeneration teasing.

“No,” he said, trying to sound sulky while finding her absolutely adorable. 

His eyes danced with gleeful affection but technically the corners of his mouth remained down turned. He often glowed happily like that, smiled without smiling. Rose, as always, found the dimple-creating expression endearing. She twinkled up at him.

“That was a smile. You smiled.” She leaned into his shoulder as she tucked her arm through his. “You didn’t move your lips but it still counts.” She searched his face, solemnly, before asking, “Are you back, then?”

“Just about.” He took a deep breath and released it. “Sorry, if I frightened you,” he added, softly.

“No probs,” she said, reaching up to push his fringe aside. She let her fingers trail down his cheek to his lips and then pulled away from him and said, briskly, “We need to bandage your hand.” 

“My hand is fine,” he said, showing her the cuts. They were already sealed. “Alcohol was the right thing to do. If,” he sucked in air, “excruciatingly painful. You’d be handy on the front lines. Brandy works wonders on my metabolism…externally, at any rate. If I ever lose a limb,” he said, cheerfully, “apply the same remedy.” He took her hand with his uninjured one, weaving his fingers through hers. Their gazes locked for a second before he started toward the door, towing her along as he went. “Come on, then, let’s get you fed.” Rose pulled back, breaking his forward momentum, and he halted and turned to peer at her. “Is something wrong? Do you feel ill again?”

“No,” she lied. Her head swam and she felt slightly woozy but now wasn’t the time to mention it. Probably, she just needed something to eat. She studied him with a searching stare. “You were completely gone there for a bit.”

“And now I’m back.” He smiled brightly, squeezing her fingers. 

“But you’re not. Sometimes…” She swallowed but then rushed out her concerns. “Sometimes, I think you cover…for the bad feelings, pretend everything is okay when it’s really not." He watched her with solemn eyes but didn't comment. "The war is still eating at you on the inside. I don’t like seeing you like that but…you don’t have to protect me.” 

“I do. I promised Jackie I’d take care of you. She didn’t like me losing Mickey.”

“You didn’t lose Mickey,” Rose huffed, disengaging her hand from his. “Not everything that happens in the universe is your fault. He wanted to stay behind…he…” She glanced away, sighing and shaking her head. Her eyes brimmed with tears. It still hurt to talk about her friend. “He left because of me.”

“He left because of us,” the Doctor corrected. “I had to show him. Make him really see it. So, he’d know.” He took a deep breath, catching her eye with a sidelong glance. “So, you see? It is my fault.” Rose shook her head but before she could argue, he started for the door again, saying, “We need to stop at the bedroom for a minute. If you think you can survive that long without sustenance.”

He seemed to have come around mentally. Rose stared after his departing figure for a moment and then trotted meekly along behind him. She decided not to push him for details about his flashback until later. It was too freshly painful to probe into now. 

“I might just make it,” she said. “Mind you, I could murder a Christmas turkey about now.”

“That’s handy, because the poultry and veal will go off quickly,” he informed her, “straight after the fresh fruits and vegetables. We’ll need to save the dried rations and canned goods for more desperate times, but by all means feel free to eat the turkeys.” He grinned down at her as they bounced along and she laughed, circling him like a tiny dog out for walkies. Jamming his hands in his pockets, he switched to a more thoughtful lecturing mode. “Stasis fields are better than refrigeration at keeping decay to a minimum, but even they won’t be able to preserve…” He stopped walking. Unable to check her momentum, Rose bumped into him and held on for balance. He took a hand from a pocket and slipped it around her waist to stabilize her before she could trip. 

“Had an idea?” She asked, trying not to sound smug. She knew him so well. All he’d needed was to start moving again and the answers would come.

“Maybe a glimmer,” he confessed, rewarding her with a toothy smile and an affectionate squeeze. “Hang on a minute while I think it through. If we reversed the polarity of the stasis field, then theoretically we could…” His lips moved but he stopped speaking. They held position, Rose cuddled to his side, as the seconds ticked away. It wasn’t quite a minute later when he shook his head. “No, we don’t have enough power.” Releasing her, he strode on. “What we really need is a sharper temporal gradient.”

“Still,” Rose said, rushing to catch him. “It’s a good sign you’re thinking, yeah? You’ll have dozen of ideas once you’ve downed a sandwich and some tea. It’s just what you need to get those mental muscles working, again, a refreshing spot. Best thing for the old synapses.”

Brows arching, the Doctor shot her a narrowed glance. “I think I’m rubbing off on you.”

“Well, you will keep sliding up against me,” Rose said, giving him a saucy nudge.

They stopped off at the bedroom. Rose picked her scissors and combs. The Doctor collected a few texts and journals. Once he’d gathered an armload of books, he located his personal computer, a massively capable device about the same size as a deck of cards.

As he pulled it from the desk drawer, Rose, peering over his shoulder, said, “Don’t show that to Bill Gates.”

“No, I’ve learned my lesson there,” the Doctor agreed. He tucked the handheld device in a trouser pocket and went to the bookshelves to find one more title, murmuring to himself, “Lamaze, Lamaze…”

Rose swept a glance around the room. It looked much smaller than she remembered. The arbor was gone. She took in the scattering of fallen leaves and their unmade bed. “I thought we had house elves for this sort of thing,” she remarked, going to the bedside and fluffing a pillow. 

The Doctor turned to look over his shoulder at her. “The TARDIS is conserving energy. I’ve told her to shut down all non-essential systems. Housekeeping is one of them. We’ll have to do our own for awhile.”

“Just so you know I never make my bed back home,” Rose said.

“Too domestic?” he inquired, grinning. 

“Waste of time. You only have to unmake it again at night.”

“Leave it if you like. I don’t mind.”

But she made an effort, plumping the pillows and smoothing out the sheets. 

“Found it,” the Doctor exclaimed, snatching a book from a high shelf just as she finished tucking in the coverlet. He came over to examine her handiwork. “Very nice job,” he told her, then immediately quelled her preening by adding, “For your first time.”

“It’s not my first time.”

“Well, then…it’s wrinkly.”

“Very funny. You can make the bed if you like.”

“I told you I don’t care if the bed gets made or not. I can sleep anywhere. We only have a bed for you.”

“Oh.” She sighed over the thought of ‘sleeping anywhere.’ What exactly did he mean? She remembered finding him asleep on the console room floor. She was just about to say they would keep the bed but leave it unmade, when a horrible thought struck her. “I’m not going to have to cook, am I?” She asked. The Doctor smirked and quirked his eyebrows at her before pivoting toward the exit. She rushed him. “Doctor? Say we still have the automatic kitchen.”

“Get your shears,” he said, pointing authoritatively back toward the desk. 

As he stalked through the door, Rose veered away from him to snatch up her combs and scissors. She tucked them into her sweater pocket. The Doctor, never one to wait on stragglers, kept walking. His long stride ate up ground but she caught him a few yards down the hallway and they made their way to the kitchen arm-in-arm.

 

************************************************************

 

Breakfast consisted of toast and turkey sausage scramble. The Doctor’s mood stayed somber through the meal but brightened when Rose helped him tidy the dishes. They chatted amiably as they washed and dried and stacked. Neither of them commented on the domesticity of the scene. But the kitchen had a cozy intimacy. When the last tea cup was shelved, Rose drew a chair out from the table and beckoned him toward it for his haircut. He offered his usual playful resistance but finally sat. 

She started combing through his hair with her fingers, dividing it into sections. She loved setting him in order, almost as much as he resented sitting still for it. He always squirmed and fussed but she knew it relaxed him to have her so close. The Doctor responded to her proximity by giving way, yeilding to her guiding hands. Styling his hair gave her an excuse to press into him while he pretended not to notice. And there was something soothing about running her fingers through his chocolate brown locks, taking their measure and trimming them into shape. 

Cutting the Doctor’s hair gave Rose a tangible connection to him, made her part of him in a way that, unlike their telepathic link, seemed completely natural to her. Days after, he would catch her eye and she’d think, ‘I did that, made his hair fall like that, I’m one of the reasons he looks so very adorable.’ Maybe he’d look just as adorable if he went to a barber or buzzed his hair off with an electric shaver like he used to, but Rose enjoyed making a difference in him, leaving her mark.

The styling went as well as it could with him shifting forward in his seat every few seconds to check some figures or to snatch another book off the table. When she was finished, Rose leaned close to blow the scattering of tiny clippings from his neck. He loved this part. It made him shiver in delight. Rose wasn’t sure if he got goose flesh because he knew having to sit still was over or if he found her breath on his nape arousing. Since learning about his erogenous zones, she suspected the latter. 

He always pulled her into his body after she blew on his skin. In the early days, she’d simply been swept into a dancing turn about the room. Later, there had been long, slow, sweet hugs. This time, he tossed his book to the table and, seizing her waist, drew her into his lap for a desperate snuggle. His hands skimmed up her back as he buried his face in the curve of her neck. 

“Thank you,” he murmured, holding on tight. 

Rose knew he wasn’t talking about the haircut. She didn’t speak, at first, content just to let him hold her. After a few deep breaths and a little squeezing of her own, she found his ear and whispered, “How’s the thinking going?” 

“Not too well,” he mumbled against her throat. Then, he pushed her back a little to look her in the eye as he said, “So, by your theory we’re still safe as houses.”

“We should see a movie,” she said.

“So you know,” he chuckled, “trying to follow your logic is giving me mental whiplash.”

“Jus’ thought of something,” she told him, mussing his hair with her fingers. “Remember how you remembered the code we needed to stop that Zygrapolin Planet Blaster weapon while watching Casablanca?”

“’Of all the gin joints in all the world,’” he quoted happily as he propelled her to her feet with a guided push. “Okay, we’ll watch a movie. I’m thinking something from the Muppet Oeuvre.”

 

***********************************************************

 

“Shouldn’t you let the guest pick the movies?”

“You can’t invoke the ‘guest rule,’” the Doctor protested, in a gratingly high register. He narrowed his eyes as he skidded away from her, sliding to the opposite end of their sofa-like theater seat. He’d been holding her close for ninety-three minutes and Rose felt the chill of him leaving. “You’re not a guest,” he sneered, “You live here.”

“Ladies choice, then?” Rose tried, in a honey-sweet purr. Her adoring expression morphed into a sterner one when he stared at her as if she’d just dribbled on her shirt. She leveled a finger at him and said, “Never say I’m not a lady.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said, humming the sentence in his uniquely seductive way while flashing a smile. “But I would point out,” he continued, losing all trace of the lover as he vaulted up off the sofa and spun to face her, “that you’ve already had a choice and now it’s my turn.”

“Since when is A Muppet Christmas Carol my choice?”

“Since you asked, ‘Can we start with A Muppet Christmas Carol?’” the Doctor retorted, reasonably. 

Whirling away from her, he made his erratically brisk way across the room. Rose watched him practically dance away, craning her neck until he was out of sight. Then, drawing her knees up, she turned in her seat to follow his progress, bracing her arms on the back of the sofa. Maybe he was faking it but it was good to see him happy again, hopeful again. He bounced about, checking shelves. Finding nothing, he rummaged through a bin by the wall until with a glad cry he extricated a huge reel of film. Pulling the reel from its case, he toted it to the projector. 

“It was an excellent choice, though,” he went on as if there hadn’t been a several-second break in their conversation. “Can you believe I hadn’t seen that movie until you came onboard?”

“No. You have every version of the story ever televised.”

“I know. But television isn’t the same. Film versions tend to be static. Television adapts. There’s a subtle genius to Darrin becoming Scrooge on Bewitched or Gilligan facing the Ghost of Skipper Past. Benny Hill as Jacob Marley in those dreadlocks? Isn’t telly brilliant?”

“Are those real episodes?” Rose asked. She couldn’t recall seeing them but then the story had been filmed so often who but the Doctor could remember every variation. Busy threading film, he didn’t answer her. “Anyway, this version had Muppets. I don’t see how you missed it.”

“There’s a gap in my library,” he said. “As I’ve told you, I took a break from Earth Films of the Nuclear Years after Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” He gave a little shudder. Rose had heard this story before and knew better than to question him. “Never regretted it until last year, when you took me to see March of the Penguins.

“Penguin love,” Rose murmured, inspiring him to meet her eye and beam. It really made her feel much better, that smile.

“I did catch Bill Murray in Scrooged,” he told her, losing the smile and scratching his head. “Death is a riot in that one.” He took a moment to do the Death-Points-A-Stern-Finger pose before going back to his reel-to-reel project. Stepping away from the projector, he frowned down at it as he said, “It might surprise you to learn that not too many of my companions would watch the Muppets with me. Zoe liked them,” he muttered, fishing his glasses out of a pocket and putting them on to get a better look at his film-threading problem. “Jo Grant did, as well. You’d think Adric or Ace would have, demographically, but they didn’t.”

Rose nodded absently. She had trouble keeping the companions straight in her head but didn’t think it mattered until she met another one. She wondered, though, if she could dig up more information on Susan. Surely, there were pictures of her somewhere.

“Nyssa liked the Muppet Show but not the movies,” the Doctor was saying.

“Maybe that’s because you always want to watch the same one?” she suggested

“It’s a classic.”

“It’s weird.”

“Weird?” he exclaimed, straightening abruptly as if she’d poked him with a pin. Scowling, he cast an offended glare at her. “Big Bird is in it.”

“The Johnny Depp of felt and feathers,” Rose muttered, rolling her eyes. “I know that you know I only asked for the Christmas Carol one because you were moping and depressed. Who’s the biggest Dickens fan in this entire universe?”

“It’s a big universe, Rose,” he said, with wide-eyed innocence. “How should I know?”

“You,” Rose told him. “You’re the one with the complete collection of television shows. You’ve got the playbills from every theatrical run. And movie posters, though you don’t like the films. You have the first editions of all book printings and that hat blocking and a button from his suit. You stole a button from his suit in Cardiff. You should be ashamed of yourself.” He snickered, decidedly unashamed. “A Muppet Christmas Carol has everything you love…” Rose went on, ticked things off on her fingers as she named them, “Charles Dickens, Christmas, scarves, ghosts, Muppets, time travel, chain rattling, Rizzo the Rat…and I don’t for one second think his character was based on you.”

“But The Muppet Movie!” the Doctor cried plaintively as he removed the digital version of the first film from the projector and tucked it away in its case. “It has no fourth wall. Orson Wells is in it.” He stabbed a finger at her as he declared, “That’s who Big Bird is: the Orson Wells of felt and feathers. Johnny Depp? No. Orson Wells.” He bobbed his head in smug satisfaction, grinning madly as he went, “Uh-huh, Uh-huh.” Rose stuck her tongue out at him and he went back to his list, “Kermit rides a bicycle. Dr. Teeth…”

“Kermit rides a bicycle in The Great Muppet Caper, too, doesn't he?” Rose interrupted. “And it’s got the Happiness Hotel. Rizzo as a bellhop. You always laugh. And Charles Grodin falls madly in love with Miss Piggy.”

The Doctor made a rude noise. “Don’t talk to me about Charles Grodin, Rose. Kermit is her soul mate. They come from different worlds, yes, but true love transcends that sort of thing and…”

“There’s that Esther Williams tribute,” Rose wheedled in a sing-song. “Water ballet.”

Tempted, the Doctor took a little more time to consider this point, nodding as he said, “True, I do enjoy a spot of synchronized swimming. We should go see Esther Williams sometime. Live and in person. Or Sonja Henje.”

“Was she a swimmer?” Rose didn’t think it sounded right but couldn’t be sure.

“Figure skater,” the Doctor intoned loftily, as if mortified by her sad lack of education. “Back when there were figures.”

“Oh,” Rose exclaimed brightly, “Why don’t we watch the one with Miss Piggy on skates.”

“The Muppet Movie is the best Muppet movie ever made, Rose. I can’t understand this reluctance on your part to see it for only the…what is it now…? The twenty-fifth time?”

“Twenty-sixth,” Rose sighed. 

“Twenty-six? Are you sure? That figure seems…” Rubbing his chin, he cast his gaze to the ceiling while he silently counted viewings. A second or two later, his brow cleared and he bobbed his head in agreement. “Right, right, I keep forgetting the one with Mickey and Jackie.” He combed his fingers through his freshly trimmed hair. “Funny, to think of you watching Muppets without me. Though, I’ve watched them without you, of course, so I can’t complain.” He grinned broadly. “Do you know how many times I’ve seen this movie? Two hundred and...”

“…and fifty-two times,” Rose said with him. A tiny indulgent smile played at the corner of her mouth as he grinned at her again. She watched him set the focus for the movie. He had a natural grace and it soothed her still-tattered nerves. She didn’t want to let him know how worried she was about her continuing nausea. His mental state might be too fragile to take another blow today. She told herself she was going to be fine and kept up the happy façade. Seeing he’d finished setting up the film, she dropped into her seat the proper way round. “I don’t mind seeing it again,” she said, "I know you love it." Facing the movie screen, she rolled her head back to yell, “But we are not having the discussion about how there aren’t enough Rainbow songs.”

“That is the one flaw in an otherwise perfect film,” the Doctor said and Rose groaned. She knew where this was headed and she wasn’t sure she had the patience for it. Joining her on the sofa by bounding over its back, he landed, bounced and then beamed at her. The sofa cushions recoiled, sending her spilling into him. He caught her neatly. After scooping up the remote and lowering the lights, he sang into the shell of her ear in a quiet but crystal-clear tenor, “Why are there so many songs about rainbows and what’s on the other side?” 

“Only there aren’t,” Rose said, wiggling about until she’d worked her arm around his waist. “I know. I know. Lots of songs about rain…Here comes the Rain Again…Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head…Rainy Night in Georgia…but none too many about rainbows.” She reached across his lap to pat his other hand, saying, “You need to let it go.”

“If only I could,” he sighed. “Maybe we should talk to Jim Henson about it.”

“Could we?”

“Well, if we ever get the TARDIS moving again. Oh, and I remembered another one,” he confided. “Rainbow in the Dark by Dio.” Rose nodded her acceptance of this addition. He shook his head. “But our count is still paltry. Minuscule when compared to the number of songs about rain. Why couldn’t it be….” he sang again, “'why are there so many songs about raining?’”

“'And what’s on the other side?'” Rose sang back to him. “That doesn’t make much sense.”

“Could do. On the other side of the rain it might be sunny. It could be a song about optimism.”

“Isn’t it already?”

“It could be a sensible song about optimism.” He glowered at her with a sort of mock ferocity. “But since when do song lyrics need to make sense on your planet? 'Someone left the cake out in the rain'? What the hell does that mean?”

“Wet cake,” Rose told him, “or, at least, a soggy cake box.”

“It wasn’t from a shop. She said she’d never have the recipe again. So she must have baked it. In fact, she says the baking took a long time, so she did.”

“You know…now we’re on ridiculous song lyrics, which we said we weren’t going to do this time, you’ll never outdo that One Week song by Barenaked Ladies.”

“’Chickity China the Chinese chicken’?” the Doctor inquired before gleefully chiming out, “’Have a drumstick and your brain stops tickin’”

“Never say you’re a fan,” Rose exclaimed, pushing him away and scooting to the far end of the sofa. “God, Jimmy used to play that song to death. Thought it was deep and meaningful because of the line, 'Like Sting, I’m Tantric'.”

“'Like Snickers, guaranteed to satisfy'?” the Doctor inquired mildly, cocking a suggestive eyebrow at her.

“Shut up,” Rose said, trying to sound severe despite wanting to laugh. “I’ll tell you what I told him: just because it doesn’t make any sense doesn’t mean it’s philosophical.”

The Doctor favored her with a lopsided grin. “True,” he nodded. “That’s a mistake far too many people make.” Jealousy sharpened the glance he shot her. With an obvious effort to seem disinterested, he asked, “This was the musician? Jimmy…? What was it, again...Smith?” 

Rose’s laugh rang out. “No,” she said. “Stone. His name was Jimmy Stone. What? You think all my boyfriends are named Smith? Mickey Smith…Jimmy Smith…Dr. John W. Smith? Think I got a Smith fetish?”

“Maybe you’ve got a Stone fetish. You said I could start calling myself that, remember?”

“That was for the joke with Rose-Etta.”

“What ever happened to old Jimmy?” the Doctor pressed. “You never mention him. You two have…philosophical differences?”

The sparkle faded from Rose’s eyes. “Something like that, yeah,” she murmured. She scrunched even further into the corner of the couch, pulling into a fetal ball. Shoulder to him, she looked expectantly toward the movie screen. The Doctor didn’t start the film. He studied her profile, feeling heartsick when she berated herself. “It was stupid. I was stupid, okay? I went along with things when I should have known better.”

He drew a deep breath and then probed gently, “Tell me.” When she didn’t, he edged closer. His knee touched her thigh. A moment later, his fingers combed through her hair. She ducked her chin. The tips of his fingers eased back the curtain of hair partially obscuring her face as he whispered her name, “Rose?”

“There’s nothing to tell,” she sighed, tipping her head to look at him. “It wasn’t…” Her cheek nested into the curve of his damaged palm. “He didn’t do anything to me, physically or…sexually. We never even…went there. It wasn’t a grown-up relationship. I thought it could be. I thought he cared about me…that we would be married and live a life but all he cared about was his drug.”

“He was an addict,” the Doctor breathed, finally understanding her reluctance to discuss this part of her life. 

It wasn’t really a question but Rose nodded. “And I didn’t even know,” she said. She closed her eyes, and pressed into his palm, drawing strength from his touch. “I didn’t know him. I was just looking for something, I guess. A way to escape my life. Jimmy was exciting…older.”

“Like me?” It hurt to think he was part of a pattern, a means of escape. 

“No, not like you. You’re…” she opened her eyes for a second and stared up at him, “Real,” she whispered and he caught his breath as an exquisite pang twisted into his chest. Oh, he wanted her, needed her, so very much. And he had no idea how to convince her stay with him.

“He had a band,” Rose went on, her eyes closing again. “When they broke up we ran off together. Left school. Went to Ireland. Jimmy said he had work there. But he was just looking for drugs. Took me six weeks to come home. I suppose that’s why my mum slapped you.”

“Because we ran away together?”

“Yeah.”

They sat in silence for a long time before the Doctor broke it with a promise. “I’m going to save you. Both of you.” 

Rose opened her eyes. “I know.” She took a deep breath and sat up straighter. His hand slipped down but she caught it in hers and dropped a kiss on his thumb before saying, “Are we watching this movie or are you still talking about how nothing rhymes with rainbow?”

“Nothing rhymes with rainbow,” the Doctor said. He leaned in to bump his nose against hers and then returned briskly to his oft-belabored point. “There really is no reason it couldn’t be ‘so many songs about raining.’ In the second verse they go on about morning stars.”

“Don’t start on the second verse,” Rose warned. The Doctor huffed, like she was stifling him and moved a small distance away from her. He started the movie with a click of his remote before crossing his arms and sulking. Into the silence of the movie beginning, Rose said, “My friend Shareen says it’s all about rainbows because Kermit is gay.”

“Kermit is not gay,” the Doctor exclaimed, uncrossing his arms again and jerking even further away from her. His finger popped the remote, stopping the film just as the music swelled. “He happens to enjoy musical theater. Some frogs do. It says nothing at all about his sexuality.”

“Not too interested in Miss Piggy, though,” Rose murmured out the corner of her mouth.

The Doctor gave a haughty sniff. “He’s also a gentleman,” he told her.

“Jus’ like you,” Rose hummed, delighted with his show of temper. He glowered at her for a moment from beneath lowered lashes but then he grinned. She scooted along the couch until her hip touched his. Tipping his head back, he faked a stretch-and-yawn and dropped his arm around her shoulders. Rose smiled, snuggling closer as the film began again. “I’m going to do Fozzie Bear this time,” she whispered. “You can do Gonzo.” 

“But everybody sings,” the Doctor reminded her.

“Everybody sings,” she agreed, because she knew those were the rules.

“Why are there so many songs about rainbows,” Kermit, Rose and the Doctor sang together, “and what’s on the other side? Rainbows are visions, but only illusions. Rainbows have nothing to hide.”

“So we’ve been told and some choose to believe it,” Rose and Kermit went on as the Doctor stiffened into abrupt silence. “I know they’re wrong wait and see.”

“What’s the matter?” Rose asked, afraid he was having another flashback. As he leaned forward, her hand glided down his spine, comforting and centering him. “Doctor?”

Kermit sang on alone, “…someday we’ll find it: the rainbow connection: the lovers, the dreamers and…” 

The movie stopped abruptly as the Doctor hit the house lights. He sprang up off the sofa, tossing the remote aside with a dramatic flourish. “Of course,” he exclaimed, between clenched teeth, “Rainbows. Why didn’t I think of it before?”

“Now, you’ve got something,” Rose said, knowingly. “Spill.”

Happy to comply, the Doctor dropped to his knees before her. His face glowed with excitement as he steepled his fingers and peered at her through the spaces. 

“Supernumerary rainbows,” he said, breathlessly. Rose wrinkled her nose him and he heaved a put-upon sigh but launched obligingly into an explanation. “Several ghostly arcs on the inside of another rainbow,” he rushed out, bringing her up to his speed. “It’s a very rare optical phenomenon, at least on your planet. It’s caused by constructive interference, two or more wavelengths supporting one another, amplifying one another. Don’t you see? You’ll get multiple rainbows.” 

Shifting to the edge of her seat, Rose gave a tentative nod. “And it’s helping us…how?”

He grinned at her and went on, “With light it creates multiple rainbows,” he opened his hands into a cup, his curling fingers representing the intersecting spectrums. “With time constructive inteference creates multiple dimensions. Two waves with the same amplitude and wavelength in phase support one another. A=A1 + A2. But if A1 = A2 the resultant amplitude will be zero. Waves completely out of phase, have no points in common and simply cancel each other.” Leaping up out of his crouch, he tossed one arm above his head and twirled about as he announced, “Destructive interference.”

“Destructive interference,” Rose repeated, standing swiftly as his bouyant mood took hold of her. “And that’s the answer?”

“Yes,” he declared with complete confidence but then he wobbled his head and one hand back and forth as he backpedaled, “Or not. It’s the beginning of the answer, I think. Time can be bent, Rose, fractured into component particles, just like light. Light is part of the temporal equation, come to that. E=mc…etc.? If we can create a destructive interference…we can protect you from any supernumerary arcs.” He shook his head. “We’re going to need more information. To the library,” he announced, like Batman on his way to the Batcave. Brandishing a finger in the air, he charged the door.

Rose scrambled after him but his longer stride soon left her behind. “Hey?” she called when they’d both reached the hallway and she noticed he was headed in the wrong direction. “You’re going the wrong way.” She pointed as the Doctor did a festive pirouette in response to her comment. “The library is along here.” 

“That’s the bedroom library,” he sniffed; obviously insulted at the suggestion they look there for answers. “All I have there is a little light reading for a sleepless night.”

“You’ve got an entire encyclopedia. Takes up six shelves.”

“The Fifty-Third-Century Britannica?” he inquired in a tone that clearly said the sum total of human knowledge hardly qualified in his mind as an encyclopedia. Rose could only hope he didn’t consider it light, humorous, reading. “Hardly helpful. No, we need the TARDIS library.”

“The TARDIS library?”

“This way,” he told her, leading on. 

She followed him back through the kitchen and along a dusty service duct. They thudded down a spiral staircase and made their way through the wardrobe. They took a few sharp turns, some more stairs and a lift. Rose started to wish she’d eaten a little less breakfast. Her nausea had returned and the Doctor kept up a swift pace. Just passed a collection of antique and futuristic cars, the way became stygian and she waited while he located a bank of light switches. They found themselves on a tennis court and crossed it. And finally, they arrived at a pair of opposing, ornately carved, teakwood doors. Rose held her breath as the Doctor pushed them open. 

She exhaled with a whoosh over the sight that met her eyes. “It’s huge,” she declared, stepping into the vaulted room and craning her neck to see the ceiling. The skeleton of some great-winged beast hung in mid-air above them. “Like the British Museum.” It was on the tip of her tongue to ask how such a vast room could fit in the TARDIS but she managed to check the impulse before she sounded a complete chav.

“About that size, yes,” the Doctor said, “but a mere bookmobile when compared to the Matrix back home. Now that…that was a library. This is a modest traveling collection, only the essentials and a few items of interest I’ve picked up along the way.”

Face turned upward, hand very close to her lips, Rose pointed to the skeleton and whispered, “Is that a dragon?”

“The very one dispatched by St. George himself,” he bragged. When she grinned at him, he sought to impress her further by adding, “Or, I could say it’s an Arkturian Thrall Lizard, dispatched by me.”

“You were St. George?” Rose said, in that silky drawl she used when particularly pleased with him. 

He waffled, rocking his head from side to side, and grimacing before folding out of his bluff. “Ah, well…no, not exactly. When I say, ‘dispatched by me.’ I mean, I acted the squire. Talked George through it. ‘Look out for the tail barb. Aim for the eye stalks.’ That sort of thing.” He glanced up at the dragon’s remains and muttered. “’Duck! It’s going to blow!’”

“It exploded?” 

“Builds up a store of primary gases in the gizzard to help provide lift,” he said, dark gaze remorseful as he remembered the creature’s magnificence. “Poke it in the wrong place and…”

“Boom!” Rose looked saddened, too. Tongue between her teeth, she gave the hideously fanged head an affectionate appraisal. “Poor little beastie.”

“Indeed,” he sighed. “But it was devouring local maidens by the cartload and I could have never gotten it onboard alive. Took a devil of a time piece by piece.” He pointed down a far aisle. “I’m going to start over there. Try to find something on temporal refraction. You could come along but it won’t be very interesting. Lots of dull formulae. Most of the books are in dead languages, untranslatable. You might want to take the tour instead.”

There was a whir of gears near ground level. Rose looked down and then, brightening in delight, exclaimed, “K-9?”

“Mark VI, Mistress. How may I assist you?”

“I always have one on standby,” the Doctor told Rose, in a whispered aside. “Saves time when I give one away. All I have to do is plug in the personality chips and he’s ready to go. And the spare keeps the library organized.” He started for the stacks, issuing orders as he left. “Show her around, fella,” he said, adding, “And Rose, for once in your life…don’t wander off.”

“Affirmative, Master.” K-9 barked. He backed and turned with a metallic zing and then trundled forward, saying, “This way, please, Mistress. The Egyptian artifacts from your world are particularly fascinating. And, of course, we also have several from Mars.”

“Do you have any easy readers for the Doctor’s language?” Rose asked the diminutive librarian as she trailed along behind him. 

“Affirmative, Mistress. But first you will need to, as the Master puts it, learn to see around corners.”

“Any books on that, then?”

“Affirmative, Mistress. This way.”

 

END THIS PART


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad Wolf Rose meets up with pregnant Rose and things get complicated. It is a volatile and dangerous combination. One the Doctor hasn't quite come to grips with, yet. We learn some stuff about space, time and languages.

PART NINE

The TARDIS library didn’t just impress with size. It brimmed over with content. Rose spent a few happy hours in the music room, listening to songs that hadn’t been written in her time. Then, she explored the dioramas of ancient and future battles. K-9 showed her how to set the tiny figures in motion and even how to program changes in strategy. She lost the Battle of Waterloo from both sides and WWIV from all sides, before losing interest. Finally, she found an oversized chair and curled up with a pile of books, scrolls and data disks on shamanism. 

“Why shamanism?” she asked K-9, surprised by the anthropological texts he’d gathered for her. 

“The particular mental state you must maintain to read the Doctor’s language, Mistress, is only practiced by certain holy men of your species.” He released his magnetic clamp and dropped another book on the low table. “These will help you expand the horizons of your awareness.”

Rose looked doubtful but picked up the latest book and read the spine before exclaiming, “Derek Acorah is a holy man?”

“Indeed, Mistress. He was well respected by the Doctor’s people.”

“By crazy old Mrs. Lindsey in 6-C, too,” Rose muttered. 

“These texts will assist you in your preliminary investigations. And these,” he nosed a deck of tarot cards toward her, “will help focus your mind.”

“Seriously?”

“Affirmative, Mistress. If that is all you require, I have some routine maintenance to perform. Can I fetch you some refreshment before powering down?”

“Yes, please,” Rose said, “just a little water and fruit.”

“Right away, Mistress.”

As K-9 turned to leave, she added, “Oh, and where’s the loo?”

“The nearest bathroom is at the far end of that corridor,” the metal dog told her, pointing the way with a low-powered laser. “Would you like me to take you, now?”

She considered it briefly but shook her head. “I’ll go later.” 

“The Master has asked you not to wander off.”

“The Master worries too much,” Rose said, as she opened the first book. “What could happen to me in an empty library?”

“The mind boggles, as the Master would say, Mistress.”

Rose gave a delicately derisive snort as the little dog trundled off. He came back a bit later with her water, a banana, a cup of diced pear and a sealed sandwich. Though it was far too much food for her current state of hunger, Rose thanked him politely. She went on reading as he powered down. Her eyelids soon drooped as she struggled through arcane translations of early explorers’ notes on indigenous peoples. Within two hours, she nodded off. 

When she woke, it seemed much later in the day. Her joints had stiffened and K-9, who had been powered down at her feet, was gone. She called him softly but there was no answering whir. Rose looked longingly toward the bathroom aisle. She needed the loo. Surely, she could follow a corridor to its end and back without a tin dog to guide her. 

*********************************************************

“Master? I regret to inform you I have lost your lover,” K-9 remarked at the Doctor’s ankles.

“Hmmm?” the bespectacled Doctor murmured, not really listening. 

He raised an inquiring eyebrow but showed no other sign of interest in this news. He didn’t even glance up from the blueprints in front of him. A massive crystalline model of his space/time problem dominated a nearby tabletop. At the center of the cathedral-like structure sat a miniature TARDIS. The Doctor consulted his plans, tinkered for a moment and then ran a series of rapid diagnostics on the model. He pushed a switch. The entire crystal structure spun prettily for a few seconds before listing to the side and sagging in the middle. Mauve lights flashed. A tinny alarm sounded. 

"Damn!"

“There was a misplaced book.”

“Well, I’m sure you sorted it out,” the Doctor remarked mildly. With a tentative hand, he moved one of the refracting crystals to a new position. Rainbows of blue, running a magnificent spectrum from indigo to powder, danced on the walls and ceiling as he made the switch. Dropping to one knee, he sighted along the table and then studied his blueprints again.

“I did indeed, Master. And I have corrected the minor glitch in my programming that allowed the error. Regularly scheduled maintenance is complete for this cycle.” K-9 chirped. 

“Good for you.”

“However, I have lost your lover.”

The Doctor jabbed some numbers into his PC and scowled at the figures generated in its tiny readout screen. Shaking his head, he dragged a hand through his hair. “It’s not working,” he ground out through gritted teeth, “Why isn’t this working?” He held up the blueprint, flapping it like a kite in a strong wind. He peered over it, peered back at it, and then turned it upside down. The change seemed to please him. He grinned at the dog at his feet and reached for one of the many buttresses around the miniature TARDIS figurine. But even as his fingers closed around the arched support his grin melted away like a scoop of ice cream dropped on a hot sidewalk. 

Whirling about, he snatched off his glasses and said, “What did you say? About Rose?”

“Mistress Rose, Master,” K-9 yipped. “She is missing.”

“What do you mean ‘missing’?” the Doctor asked, pursing his lips and cocking his head at the tin dog. “Not where you left her?”

“No, Master. Sensors indicate Rose Tyler is not currently aboard the TARDIS.”

Mouth forming an almost perfect ‘o’, the Doctor stared into the middle distance for a long few seconds. He let his mind wander, searching intuitively for Rose as he muttered, “Not currently aboard. But aboard?”

“Affirmative, Master. She was studying the Acorah texts.”

The Doctor’s brows lifted like birds taking flight. “Was she?”

“Affirmative. She expressed a desire to learn your language.”

“And you obliged her?” The Doctor gave his mechanical pet a stern stare but then sniffed and shrugged. “Looks like she was serious about it.”

“But how is it possible, Master? Video surveillance indicates she did not study long enough memorize the formula. She fell asleep. She did not even look at all of the books. She did not study. She did not practice with her guidance cards. She did not take the cards with her. How is it possible she is missing, Master?”

“Oh…I don’t know,” the Doctor said, curling his upper lip to bare teeth as he massaged the back of his neck. “How could she possibly control the Time Vortex? How did she convince the TARDIS to give her access to it in the first place? How did she convince me to...” he looked down at the little metal dog, “…well…dance? How did she convince you to give her such dangerous texts? She’s very convincing.” 

“She did not convince me, Master. She simply asked.”

“Yes,” the Doctor drawled, widening his eyes. “That’s her usual method.”

“She asked time to bend for her…?”

The Doctor waffled a little as he scratched an ear. “Seems unlikely. But…if, as you say, she’s not currently onboard…then?” He glanced down at K-9. “You’re certain she didn’t just pop back to the control room and out the front door? I suppose you checked all of the outer surveillance?” 

“Affirmative. She is not outside, Master.”

“Well, then. There you are. I wouldn’t worry about the ‘how’ if I were you. Once Rose knows something is possible, she doesn’t bother about it being impossible for her. She tends to skip ahead of the learning curve. Precocious, that’s my Rose.” He jutted his chin toward his temporal refraction model. “I should let her have a look at this.” 

 

**************************************************************

 

Rose had found the loo with no trouble at all. She wasn’t impressed with her discovery. The bathroom was at the end of the corridor, just as K-9 had indicated. Any fool could walk a straight line between bookshelves. She went inside, checked her complexion in the mirror, grimaced and then turned her attention to the facilities. Like every bathroom on the TARDIS the library one had a booth with a dial for conjuring up the appropriate toilet for your species. There were, however, two standard booths, one of which contained a human-friendly, bidet-style commode. There was no toilet paper, something she’d had a terrible time getting used to but eventually she’d learned to have patience with the far more sanitary wash and dry method.

As she left the bathroom, a flicker of light caught her eye. She paused, squinting in the direction of the golden glimmer and it vanished. She tilted her head. The light seemed to be a reflection from something just around the corner of the next aisle. It was only visible at a certain angle. When she stared straight toward it, it disappeared. Her stomach gave a low rumble and she glanced longingly toward her distant sandwich. The flash of light returned, teasing her eye, and she had to know what it was. She moved toward it instead of heading back to her studies. 

A bout of dizziness struck as she turned the corner around the end of a tall bookcase. The floor tipped and slid under her. Her head whirled. Grabbing at the near wall, her hand met smooth glass, instead of the expected roundels. The unexpected texture startled her. Jerking away, she stumbled and slammed her shoulder into a bookcase, causing books to thud over as the shelf rocked precariously. The room did a slow dip and spin. Rose listened to her heart banging, crouching a little as she tried to regain her bearings. When the swirling room stabilized, she found it oddly altered. 

She was opposite a trophy case, a massive one. It ran forever along the wall. She looked in both directions and saw no end to it. But, surely, that was wrong. The bathroom door had been right there. Moving carefully so she didn’t set off another dizzy spell, Rose stood and sighted along the trophy case. Not only was there no sign of the bathroom, the entire room looked different. The nature of the lighting had changed. Instead of the clean white of overhead fluorescents, yellow bulbs flickered in old-fashioned sconces. The sconces appeared to be modified gaslight fixtures. Their fat, frosted-glass globes provided texture in the golden light. The bookcases looked much the same but were wood instead of metal. There was no carpet underfoot. Hardwood floors creaked as she took a step. 

Rose looked up, searching for the dragon skeleton. It had vanished. There was nothing in the rafters but rafter. Where the hell was she? There were no windows but also no reassuring roundels. She peered into the trophy case, hoping for a clue, and discovered one immediately. On the base of a cup just in front of her nose someone had inscribed the words, First Place Old Smithton Squash Tournament 1915, Doctor John W. Smith. Rose couldn’t help smiling as a wave of affection splashed over her. She was obviously still onboard the TARDIS. In another room, or another part of the library. An older, less used section, perhaps? 

She wondered why the TARDIS had moved her to this spot. And how it had moved her so quickly. It had never jerked her unceremoniously out of space/time before. Was the Doctor nearby? Perhaps injured? When she received no answer to her tentative call, she sighted along a few aisles but didn’t see him. Did the TARDIS want her to notice something? She studied the contents of the display case, hoping for insight. 

The Doctor had trophies. That didn’t surprise her. People were always handing him trinkets, knighting him and the like. What did surprise her was his having a trophy display. He’d always seemed immune to reward or acclaim, never one to seek attention of that sort. He was, generally, mildly amused by it. His previous regeneration had shocked her once when, after politely accepting a silver medal for bravery, he’d wasted no time dropping it down a storm drain. He'd called it a ‘meaningless bauble.’ Now, she’d found a case full of ego ornaments. 

Rose was amazed by the scope of the collection. But looking closer, she was forced to admit he’d given scant respect to the contents of this case, apparently just tossed things in at random. There seemed to be no reasoning or order behind the display. Literally, thousands of awards from an equal number of worlds were haphazardly crammed into the huge case. Most of the trophies were in need of a good polish. Plaques and cups and certificates jumbled into and over each other. Why bother to keep them at all, Rose wondered, if he wasn’t proud of them? 

Then it dawned on her, the case was a sort of scrapbook, a physical record of places he’d been, and things he’d cared about, at least for a moment in time. The bottom shelf of the case appeared to hold nothing but Keys to Cities and endless honorary citizenships. A Nobel Peace Prize circa 3110 A.D. rested next to a bowling trophy from 1951. The Doctor had a bronze medal for jujitsu from the First Anti-gravity Olympics and a second place ribbon for cranberry nut muffins from the Pillsbury Bake-Off. She couldn’t help chuckling over some of the unlikely events or tasks he’d excelled at: Beekeeping? Snoogle-Ball? Fire walking? Rxalavanian Body Sequencing? Or was that ‘sequining’? Rose squinted at the alien inscription, TARDIS-translated to English in her head.

While reading a commendation for service to the Empire of the Fifth Great and Noble SlzzkώqltД, she got the first ice-pick pain between her eyes and knew she would have to stop reading soon. She thought again about languages. The TARDIS translated everything, writing as well. Everything but Gallifreyan and words without English translation like SlzzkώqltД, which for all she knew was a family name. If a word could be phonetically pronounced in any Earth language, the TARDIS would give her appropriate symbolism to say it aloud. The Doctor had told her it was up to her to learn how to pronounce Cyrillic letters and other types of phonetic writing. 

‘It’s only what any human should know,’ he’d sniffed testily. ‘The TARDIS can’t do all your thinking for you.’

‘But it does,’ she’d countered, ‘when it translates what I hear.’

He’d look up from his tinkering and narrowed his eyes at her in a way that told her she was being too clever for her own good. Apparently, most of his companions had simply accepted the gift of translation without questioning it. Seeing she wasn’t satisfied, the Doctor had rattled off an explanation at such speed she’d taken in only every fifth word. The upshot was, as far as she could tell, that a language was only dead to the TARDIS when there had been no living speaker in the TARDIS’ lifetime. And the TARDIS was very long-lived, older even than the Doctor. Basically, it translated everything. 

But some things wouldn’t fit in her head very easily. Because, of the shape of her brain, if she understood the Doctor’s mouthful-a-millisecond explanation correctly. Ancient, alien writing was sure to give Rose a headache if she tried to read too much of it. It had to do with her eyes seeing something other than what was translated to her brain. Because of this, she generally left the task of reading very ancient texts to the Doctor, who had a far better grasp of intergalactic symbolism than she would ever have. 

Only occasionally did his greater literacy make her feel dependent and slightly stupid. Reading alien languages was a strain, like her brain really was the wrong shape and she was stretching it with mental Pilates. Only Gallifreyan seemed worth the trouble. Which was odd when she thought about it, because who but the Doctor and the TARDIS would ever talk to her in Gallifreyan?

Letters swimming before her watering eyes, Rose reluctantly stepped away from the intriguing trophy case. Believing the Doctor had to be close by and sleeping, because the TARDIS had brought her here, she called to him again. No answer. She shouted. Her voice echoed back but there was no other sound. The Doctor didn’t appear. She tried to mentally prod the TARDIS for help. Nothing. Of course, the TARDIS seldom responded to her attempts at telepathy. The stupid ship was as enigmatic as its pilot. Heaving a sigh, she set off in the direction the Doctor had taken when they’d parted.

A few hours later, tired of trudging, Rose admitted she was lost. She was also achy and nauseous. Everywhere she looked there were books, books and more books, aisle after aisle, row after row. Not even a lighted display or a map stand to break up the monotony. She tipped woozily and wished again for a chair and a comforting hug. “Stupid, bloody, useless crate of a ship,” she muttered, hoping the TARDIS would take umbrage, or a hint, and move her toward the Doctor. She’d started off yelling to him periodically but her voice had gone scratchy and she’d stopped, saving her breath for tromping up and down the endless aisles. She thought about lying down on the floor for a nap.

Without any warning, a clearing opened in the stacks, a little oasis with a table and a few chairs. Grateful for a place to rest and regroup, Rose shuffled to one of the wing-backed chairs and sank into its soft cushions. Drawing her knees up, she curled into a ball, resting her throbbing head against one wing of the chair. Within a few minutes, she dozed. The next thing she knew something poked her in the ribs.

She jerked away from the jab as she came awake, twisting her body to glare, first, at the object prodding her, a cane, and then up at her assailant. His craggy, old face seemed vaguely familiar but she couldn’t quite place him. His shoulders stooped and his wrinkled skin had thinned to translucency. His longish hair was snowy white. It fluttered softly as he poked her a second time. She seized the end of his cane, planning to gently relieve him of it. But he fought her for possession. His startlingly blue eyes sparked with intense curiosity and stubborn fire as they wrestled the stick back and forth. There were laugh lines around his eyes but he wasn’t smiling. 

“Let go. Let go, I say!” he ordered in a voice with absolutely no quaver. “What do you think you’re doing?” he went on, after wrenching the stick from Rose’s hand. “Lounging about when you don’t belong?”

“I’m…uh,” Rose rubbed the heel of her palm along her sleep-numbed cheek. The gesture spread the thin dribble of saliva at the corner of her mouth. Red with embarrassment, she wiped the wetness from her hand onto the leg of her jeans and asked, “Where am I?”

“When are you? You’re on my ship. In my library. That you already know. But it’s when you shouldn’t be.”

“I wasn’t, I just…your library?” 

“Yes, mine. No one else’s.”

Rose knuckled her eyes, trying to clear away the cobwebs. She felt off kilter but like all of this should mean something to her. “And who are you?”

“Never you mind who I am,” the old gent said snippily. “You don’t belong here.”

A high sweet voice called from the stacks, “Grandfather, have you found the translation, yet? Do you need some help?”

“Susan,” the old man barked, “Stay where you are.” He glared at Rose. “And you…up…on your feet. You can’t be now. When have you come from?”

“But that’s…is it Susan?” Rose asked, rising at once from her seat but ducking around the old gentleman to peer down an aisle. The thought of seeing her child sent a thrill down her spine. Shooting a quick glance over her shoulder, she asked for confirmation, “Susan Foreman? Is she here? Is she okay?”

“Foreman? Foreman?” the old man rasped, in a voice obviously meant for her ears alone. “What are you babbling about, child? I’ve never heard of such a person. But my Susan is perfectly well…perfectly happy. And the prickling at the back of my neck tells me she will stay that way as long as you move on immediately. Are you completely unaware of…” He cocked his head to one side. It was a sharp movement and, in his dark frock coat, he resembled a curious crow. “Is that your young man I hear calling you?”

Rose listened intently for a moment but finally shrugged. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Yes, well, that’s homo sapiens for you. Deaf. Blind. Hopelessly lost. I’m sure you will hear him if you simply move a little closer to the source,” the old fellow insisted. Seizing Rose’s elbow, he began dragging her toward the nearest aisle. He was quite spry for an octogenarian. He hustled Rose toward the bookshelves at some speed. “Run along now before you miss him.” He tightened his grip and pulled her down until her ear was even with his lips. “Touch nothing,” he hissed. “Change nothing.” Setting her away, he looked her up and down, pausing in his perusal when his gaze reached the bottom hem of her yellow sweater. Rose got the distinct feeling he could see the embryo inside her as he asked, “When exactly have you come from, child?”

Rose pointed over her shoulder. “Back there and…” She broke off to scowl at him. “What do you mean, when?” The old man smiled sweetly and she recognized him. “Oh, it’s you.”

“Indeed, it is,” he said, his smile stretching into one of indulgent amusement. “No need for introductions, it seems. Yes, it is I. Just as it apparently is you. Human. Late twentieth-century. Not even well-born.” The Doctor, for Rose was sure now of the old gent’s identity, shook his head sadly. “This news comes, you must understand, as quite a shock to my nerves. I had no idea Susan was…well…no need to go into it. Certainly, it hasn’t seemed to adversely affect her.”

“You can’t be here,” Rose said, deaf to his musings. “We’ll get some kind of paradox.”

“It is not I who is out my place, child,” the Doctor told her. “It is you who are floating about when you shouldn’t be. I haven’t drifted a millisecond. You, on the other hand, have been hopping and skipping about, turning temporal corners willy-nilly. Have you no guide? No training? What can they be thinking to let you roam about like this? And in your condition, too?”

Puzzling out the kernel of sense in his speech, Rose frowned and glanced at her stomach. “I’m time traveling?”

“Yes. Yes. Time traveling,” the Doctor said, impatiently, “In a manner of speaking…after a fashion. Taking your first baby steps, as it were. Has no one explained the Wheel of Time to your, child?” He caught himself before he could launching into a lecture and briskly added, “But you should not be…just now.” 

“But how? I can’t….”

“You obviously can.” 

“No. Seriously. This is something else. Something’s…wrong…” she snapped her fingers and pointed at him, “Like a hallucination, yeah?”

The Doctor looked annoyed and drew breath to comment, but whatever he’d been about to say went unspoken.

“Grandfather? Is everything all right?” Susan called from an aisle on the other side of the clearing. Both the Doctor and Rose jumped.

Filled with inspired urgency, the Doctor spoke in a breathless rush. “Turn the corner,” he told Rose. “You can do it. Just focus on your young man and follow his voice home.” He pointed down the aisle with his walking stick as he shoved on her shoulder. “Go be…some when else.”

“All right. All right,” Rose grumbled. She should have been upset but the whole situation was too preposterous. She felt detached from events. “No need to push. It’s not supposed to be good for the baby, you know? Time traveling? We had to stop.” 

“I do know,” he assured her, with more tenderness than she would have expected from him. “But you’ve got no other choice.”

Teeth worrying at her bottom lip, Rose stared along the endless aisle. All right, she'd humor him. “How do I… go…exactly?”

“Grandfather, honestly, the readings are all over the place. I think we must have a breach in the test line or…” A pixyish, dark-eyed girl exited an aisle opposite Rose’s side of the little library clearing. She couldn’t have been more than thirteen. Glancing up from the monitor in her hand, she noticed Rose for the first time. “Oh, or,” she laughed, “We have a temporally transient visitor. Hello.”

“This is none of your concern, Susan,” the Doctor said, zipping spryly across the floor to intercept the girl. 

Rose echoed him softly, “Susan,” she said.

“This young person has simply slipped her time stream,” the Doctor went on briskly, his arms spread wide to herd his granddaughter away. “I was about to guide her back to the proper corner. You can run along. Back to your experiment.”

“That happens to everyone at first,” Susan said. Ignoring the Doctor’s gruff dismissal, she skirted around him to close on Rose. 

The bright flash of the girl’s smile reminded Rose of another irresistible grin. Susan’s guileless face, held some of the same magical allure that came naturally to her father. Seeing her in person, Rose saw the truth clearly. Saw her Doctor in the curious tilt of the head and that suddenly beaming smile. This was his daughter. Her daughter. Their daughter. The family resemblance hit Rose low in the gut. 

“I got lost for five days once. Remember, Grandfather?” Susan remarked as she walked steadily toward Rose. “I don’t care what those fussy old Senators say. It’s easy to do unless you’re concentrating. The least little distraction and poof.” She held out her hand. “My name’s Susan. It’s funny, I know. A human name, from old Earth, it means Lily, which is a type of flower from the family Amaryllidacea. Long story really, and not even very interesting. Though I’ve often wished I’d been named Amaryllidacea. It sounds much more Gallifreyan, don’t you think? But no, I’m just Susan with an S. Well, two S’s but no Z’s. What’s your name?”

“Rose,” Rose said without thinking. She’d never suspected prattling on about nothing in particular could be a hereditary trait. Stick a pair of heavy rimmed glasses on the girl and she could be imitating her father. She was the spitting image of him. Except, those were Tyler family eyes, Cousin Sylvia’s eyes, Rose’s eyes.

“Oh, there’s a coincidence,” Susan said in response to the name and Rose half expected her to say, ‘that’s my mother’s name’ but instead she said, “That’s an Earth flower, too. Are you from Earth? What era? I simply adore the late twentieth century. The music is so…energetic. Imagine us both named for flowers! Nice to meet you, Rose.” She shoved her hand out more prominently, as if Rose might have been missing it.

“Oh, God,” Rose breathed, feeling suddenly faint as she stared down in rude fascination at the narrow hand extended to her. 

Her heart lurched. Those fingers belonged to the baby she was carrying. They were the Doctor’s fingers, tapered and elegant. His hands, Rose thought, my eyes, his brows. She recognized her own unfortunate nose and felt a stir of pity for the girl. And surely those were her lips, too. But the Doctor was well represented in the girl’s unconscious mannerisms, in the shape of her face and her firm chin, squared off and determined. Rose blinked as her vision went misty. They had a little girl, she and the Doctor, a perfectly healthy, happy baby…well…teenage girl.

An arm slipped around Rose’s waist. The touch made her tingle in a way that if she'd stopped to think about it would have been very disturbing. “Go,” the Doctor growled, low and menacing, into her ear. “Now. Before she sees it, too. Before the loop closes on all of us.”

He used the same pedantic, slightly insulting, tone he’d used once before to say…

Don’t…touch…the baby!

I’m not stupid. 

You could have fooled me.

It dawned on Rose she was being monumentally stupid, risking their child’s life. This was the same sort of situation as the one she’d created trying to save her father. You couldn’t, or shouldn’t, loop around a life so a teenager was in the same place as her infant self.

“Yes,” she said, backing away before Susan could take her hand. “I’m sorry, I have to go. It was nice meeting you…both of you. Lovely…ship…I mean…library you have…” She babbled as she blindly flailed an arm to locate the aisle behind her. “Sorry, I can’t stay. Love to but… can’t…you know.” Her gaze remained fixed on Susan until the old gentleman stepped into her line of sight. 

“At the end of this row of shelves turn right,” he said, with gentle firmness. Rose bobbed her head to show she understood. Whirling away, she stumbled at a run toward the far end of the aisle. The Doctor’s elder warble floated after her. “Follow the music until you hear the sound of his voice. He is calling you.”

************************************************************

He was calling her. He’d been calling her for weeks. His head hurt. His chest ached. He needed a shave. His legs felt ready to fold up under him as he leaned heavily against the end of a bookshelf. He hadn’t slept or eaten since K-9 had prompted him out of complacency with a simple question. 

“Skipping through time and space is ill-advised, Master,” the little dog had said after taking a moment to process some data. “Even in the best of circumstances.”

“Can be,” the Doctor had agreed distractedly. Frowning down at his failed refraction model, he’d shrugged off the concern. “She’ll be alright, though,” He’d added, sounding less than completely confident in this prediction. “The TARDIS will look after her.”

“Affirmative. But…Master…? Won’t the temporal instability affect her condition?”

The Doctor’s head had snapped up and his mouth had dropped open. His staring eyes blinked rapidly. He’d tried to maintain his composure as the bottom fell out of his world. All of his calculations were for nothing if Rose was time traveling. Fighting down an urge to smack himself in the forehead, he'd let his mind race through all the miscalculations born from his distraction. They were too numerous to fully comprehend. He'd raked a hand through his hair, fisting his fingers to tug at the short strands.

How could he have been so preoccupied? So thoughtlessly complacent? So monumentally stupid? He’d left Rose on her own, studying Gallifreyan, never imagining she’d learn the first lesson so well. She could see around corners. Walk around corners. She’d gone time traveling with no guide. Pregnant women shouldn't time travel at all. She was surely lost some when in the TARDIS’ subjective history. And she could easily die before he found her.

“Where did you last see her?” he’d barked, already running in the direction Rose had gone when they’d parted. 

K-9 had followed him. But with no hope of keeping up the pace, the little dog had blared, “Subcultural Clairvoyance,” from his speakers, while his rotors spun up to top speed.

When K-9 finally caught up with the Doctor, he directed him toward Rose’s abandoned books and then on to the bathroom. “She asked for directions to the washroom facilities, Master. I advised her not to wander unattended.”

“Oh, I’m sure you did,” the Doctor said with a groan. “This is my fault, K-9. Stupid. Stupid,” he chided himself.

Setting aside recriminations, he’d taken up the hunt from there, sniffing out clues like a temporal bloodhound, tracing his companion through history. She would have stepped back. It was possible to step forward but not the first time, not by accident. As he’d searched, new memories bloomed in his mind, crowding his old ones out of their place. That wasn’t unusual. 

Being a Time Lord meant having room in your head for conflicting, even contradictory, recollections. He could remember Rose now from his earliest lifetime. She’d come back to him, seen Susan. He’d sent her off again. But he could also remember a time when he hadn’t had such a memory. And as diligently as he searched he could find no other trace of Rose in his own remembered history. Not that it meant anything that he couldn’t. He knew his memory had holes, gaping holes, from the war and from others meddling.

There was always temporal meddling going on somewhere. Every so often, time spilled and scattered around a Time Lord like a fresh deck of cards cascading from the hands of an inexperienced dealer. New realities developed, layering over or shoving aside old ones. It was like stepping through the looking glass. Eat this or drink that, Alice. 

The Doctor had learned to compensate for changes in his own history. Talking rabbits didn’t worry him unless they were armed with more than a pocket watch. But this shifting of personal reality was no doubt why so many of his kind chose to stay temporally fixed on Gallifrey. It was also why so many of those who traveled in time went mad. The Doctor considered adding his name to the list of lunatics when a blinding white light suddenly filled the aisle and, squinting into the brightness, he saw his Eighth-self step out of the void with an obviously unconscious Rose in his arms. 

Mixed emotions washed over him in waves: elation, fear, love, worry, hope and confusion. Rose was safe or back, at least. But she wasn’t moving and he had no memory of this. No memory of his Eighth-self meeting Rose, let alone traveling through time to meet him. He could see it happening but he couldn’t explain it. 

And that was a very bad sign.

END THIS PART


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose is wandering through time and historic versions of the TARDIS, meeting other companions and Doctors. Much like the recent Clara...however...this fic was written and posted years ago and, also, comes with good reasons for the wandering. We must...just bear with the similarities in later canon.

PART TEN

After dashing partway down the aisle, Rose slowed her pace so she could feel her way along. This was ridiculous. More than half certain she was dreaming, she moved warily, placing each foot with care before stepping forward, and listening, always listening, for the Doctor. She didn’t hear him, of course, and a big part of her wasn’t the least bit surprised. Nobody could time travel without a ship. It was just silly. People would be disappearing and reappearing all over the place. And, if it was possible, why hadn’t the Doctor done it when they were trapped somewhere without the TARDIS? 

She had to be dreaming. But she stopped at the end of the aisle, took a deep breath and purposefully turned the corner. Gazing down the next aisle, she could see the silhouettes of Susan and Dr. Old-as-the-Cryptkeeper appear, backlit at the far end of the shelving. The Doctor’s body language clearly conveyed his disappointment in her. Great, Rose thought, just don’t tell Susan her mother is an idiot. Spreading her hands in pantomimed apology, she took a giant step backward even as he took a pointed stride in her direction. 

She almost overshot the corner again but staggered into the anomaly, flailing her arms as she fell sideways. It felt like reality had lost a wall. A soft refrain of music drew her attention. She turned her head toward it and navigated the temporal corner into instantly brighter surroundings. With a sigh of relief, she smiled up at the florescent lighting. The dragon’s polished skull grinned back at her from overhead. She had time to think one word, ‘Home,’ before the dizzy spell hit. 

This time it leveled her. A debilitating wave of pain and nausea buckled her knees. She sank to the carpet, clutching her head and moaning. Leaning hard into a bookshelf, she fought to stay upright, mostly to keep her stomach from purging. Something slithered by at the very edge of her peripheral vision. Something she instinctively knew had been drawn to her weakness. A sound like pearls clicking one after the other onto a vanity top sent a spear of icy chill straight through her. Her primal brain kicked in, prodding her to action.

Move. Stand and leave. Don’t look behind you.

Death was close at hand. Pure evil. She tried to get off the floor, scrambling ineffectually at the shelving. Her body refused to obey her demands. She felt oddly detached, hollow inside. Each breath seemed to echo around in her chest. Her head felt huge and vacant, almost cavernous. It was hard to find anything resembling a thought in it. And there was a voice, a hissing, hypnotic voice, calling itself her Master. She had a delirious idea her body expanded and contracted at the whim of this voice. The evil thing appeared to be inhaling her. She had to get out of here, somehow, before she disappeared. Unable to stand, she started to crawl along the floor on her hands and knees. Laughter, a maniacal cackle, dogged her progress.

Setting her jaw, Rose stood, pushing her numb limbs as she climbed hand-over-hand up a bookshelf. Her legs wobbled. She tottered as she gained her feet, stumbled into the far bookcase and nearly fell again. Her full weight hit a shelf and it gave way. A complete set of ancient star maps, one hundred and forty-eight volumes, cascaded to the floor, making a devilish racket. The suggestion of a silvery snake reared back to strike at her ankle and Rose lurched away from it, reeling as she tried to run. She bounced off shelving on both sides of the aisle. The bookcases started to topple like dominos. One of them fell toward her.

Wordlessly, she screamed for the Doctor. He answered in her mind. He was quite close. There. To her left. Rose threw herself toward him. The falling bookshelf went through her like she was a ghost, or it was a mirage, as she reached for the Doctor’s hand. Time cornered under her faltering feet. The floor gave way and she fell forward into a darkened stillness. The air smelled musty and stale and was far too warm. Someone caught her before she could crash to the ground, a man who smelled like fresh cut grass and linen. His arm encircled her, comforted her.

“I’ve got you,” he said, breezily, carrying her down to the floor. He had dark curled hair and an elegant profile. “But where in Hades, if you will pardon the expression, did you come from?”

“I…Doctor?” Oh, God, she could hardly catch her breath for the pain in her belly. She curled around the agony, wondering if the snake-thing had bitten her. The air had texture, color. It was so hard to focus through it.

“I am a doctor, yes,” the Doctor said. He tenderly brushed the hair from her eyes. “Dr. Ishmael Mordeghi Foreman, at your service. Did you come from the surgery?” He peered past her as if he could somehow make the suggestion true by concentrating very hard and ignoring his memory of her falling out of thin air. 

Squinting through a delirium-induced haze, Rose moistened her lips as she tried to gather some coherence from the candyfloss contents of her mind. All of her ideas were sticking together. She gazed up at the Doctor, knowing him and puzzled by his strange reaction to her arrival. He didn’t seem to know her. Maybe that was right. Maybe they’d never met. She couldn’t remember. This was the Seventh, no, the Eighth form he’d taken. 

He was handsome, like the war heroes in Regency oil paintings. She’d seen faces like his on a school tour of the British Museum. He had the same surreal masculine beauty as artist’s renditions of Lord Nelson. A hawkish nose gave his face strength but he had a lush mouth and heavy-lidded, soulful eyes. The Lothario, her Doctor had once called him. Rose wasn’t precisely sure what being a ‘Lothario’ entailed. But she’d always thought this version of her Doctor looked particularly kissable, if a bit stodgy and old-fashioned in his satin waistcoat and velvet jacket. Cheek pillowed against the snowy folds of his neckerchief, she heard the steady double beat of his hearts and the hollow reverberation of his voice when he spoke.

“Are you injured, miss? Or ill?” he asked. “And is this your…” he sighed, struggling for words as he gaze toward the darkened rafters of the TARDIS, “…for lack of a better term…ship?”

“T…TA…RDIS,” Rose croaked. She wondered why the library looked so dim and felt so lifeless. It seemed abandoned, yet, obviously wasn’t. 

“Ah, it is yours then. Is that what you call it? The good ship, Tardis,” he laughed lightly, a honey-sweet, summer-warm sound. His face lit up with the laugh and he seemed years younger. “Tardis,” he repeated, softly. “I like it. It seems…familiar.”

Why would the Doctor think the TARDIS belonged to her? Rose opened her mouth to question him but she couldn’t draw enough breath to speak. The Doctor’s arm was still cradling her. Sliding his hand down, he shifted his fingers to close them around her wrist at the pulse point. Thinking vaguely of snakes, she jumped and glanced down. 

“Checking your pulse,” he told her. He consulted a gold pocket watch for the seconds. 

“Time,” Rose breathed, trying to convey every question she had with a single word.

“Just before three in the afternoon,” he answered, clicking his watch closed. “I’ve been wandering the halls of your magnificent vessel since early this morning. Mesmerized. It simply appeared in my drawing room. A blue box. I pushed on the door and was astounded by the inner dimensions…though, I suppose,” he chuckled softly, “you hear that all the time.” 

After tucking the watch into a small pocket on his waistcoat, he slid a hand under Rose’s sweater and probed gently along her bare abdomen. When he hit a particularly tender spot, she yelped. Her knees drew up defensively. The Doctor murmured an apology but finished his examination. Then, gently settling her to the floor, he eased his arm from beneath her. He pushed her knees down and, lifting her sweater and shirt, placed his ear to her bare belly. Heavy locks of brown hair tickled her skin. Having him close was so very comforting. Rose lifted her hand to the back of his head, wanting to keep him near. But the effort exhausted her. It felt like her arm was made of solid marble. 

“Your pulse is fast and thready,” he told her, “For a human, at any rate. I suppose you are human? Not from the moon or beyond the stars or some such?” Rose’s hand slid through his hair as he sat up. He gazed down at her curled fingers, evidently puzzled by the intimate gesture. He really had the most astounding eyes, sad and eternal. “Your digestion sounds in working order. Excuse me for asking the impertinent questions but as your doctor I must know…could you be with child?”

“Yes,” Rose managed. Then, after a pause to pant away the urge to retch, she added, “Susan.”

Calculating distance, he stared along the darkened library aisle. It was a long way to the outer door. “Well, Susan, I should get you back to my surgery,” he said. Spinning gracefully up out of his cross-legged pose on the floor, he stood and then leaned over to offer her both hands. “Can you walk? If I assist you, can you stand?”

Rose didn’t think she could do either. But she tried to take his hands. He caught her by the wrists and pulled her, effortlessly, to him. Rose rested her head on his shoulder as his arms encircled her. A painfully bright light struck her like a blow to the back of the head as he lifted her. Purple and yellow dots filled her vision. She heard a scream and had just enough time to realize it was her own voice before she lost consciousness. 

 

***************************************************************

 

When Rose came to she was lying on her back. She shifted her shoulders, gathering information even as her eyes focused on the ceiling. There was something soft, like a bed but narrow, under her. A bench, maybe. She didn’t appear to be in the TARDIS anymore. But she certainly wasn’t home. For a moment, she struggled to remember what had happened. Then, she did. But recalling didn’t help her understand her strange surroundings. Lifting her head, she sighted along her body to her bare toes. Her shoes were gone. And so was the rest of her clothing. Someone had dressed her in a pale yellow gown, cut like a nun’s habit. Her tingling skin told her she was naked under the garment, no bra, no knickers. Hoping to learn more, she carefully turned her head to take in the rest of the room. 

It was a large, elegantly decorated apartment done in an odd combination of silver and orange. A pit full of pillows and small tray-like platforms took up a third of the floor. Windows dominated the far wall. The Doctor, still number Eight, stood with his back to her, gazing out at an unearthly cityscape. He wasn’t wearing shoes but, other than that, he was still dressed like an nineteenth century gentleman. Rose silently studied both his ramrod-stiff back and the magnificent view. Her sense of perspective told her they must be in a penthouse, somewhere very high above some great city. The city stretched as far as the eye could see, all the way to the foothills of a distant mountain range. 

The air smelled processed but it had a tangy overtone, like the spice market in Marrakech. Rose remembered how much the Doctor loved spice markets. Only the Earthly ones thrilled her, but he had a more discriminating nose. She wondered what scents he caught in the air here as she pushed up onto her elbow. The sky outside shifted from crimson to yellow as a tiny sun raced across it. A second, larger sun loomed on the horizon.

“Where are we?” Rose asked amazed by the strength of her voice, by the wash of exuberance she felt.

The Doctor turned, smiling in delight before bouncing across the lush silvery carpet to her side. “You’re awake.” All of his stiff formality seemed to have melted away, leaving him boyish and graceful. His smile was more sensual than beaming. Rose couldn’t help staring at his bare feet. She thought she might be developing some kind of Time Lord Foot Fetish because she suddenly wanted to undress him. Would that be so wrong? He was her Doctor, after all.

“Gallifrey,” he announced, cutting into her fantasy. With a grin and a sweep of his arm toward the windows, he went on, “My home world. Never thought I’d see it again. Well, not with these eyes.” 

“Gallifrey,” Rose said with reverence. Needing to see more, she swung her feet to the floor and sat up on the edge of what was indeed a bench. She wondered why she felt so much stronger. “I feel better,” she said. “No more swirling room.”

The Doctor grin vanished. He looked miserable as he sank down beside her, gathering her hand into his with fingers that spider-crawled up her thigh. “Yes, I’m sorry,” he said, staring at their clasped hands. “You must understand they did what they could.” She tipped her head to the side and squinted at him, obviously confused. 

“Who did…and what?”

“The Time Lords, my people. They had to…take your baby.”

Rose jerked her hand from his. “They did what?” she yelped, surging to her feet. No, they couldn’t have killed Susan. It wasn’t possible. Time would change, history would change. She put all of the sick emptiness she was feeling into a scathing assessment of this version of the Doctor, raking her eyes down him as she snarled, “And you just stood by and let them?

Startled by her anger, he tried to soothe her. “I wasn’t there. You were in hospital. And even if I had been, there was nothing I could do. Nothing anyone could do. Your life was in jeopardy. You were out of your mind with fever. The Transmat process pushed your embryo through an erratic growth spree but it was already badly damaged by your travels. The rapid changes were too much for your body to tolerate. Your immune system had overloaded. Rejected the embryo. If we hadn’t intervened you would have died, both of you.”

Rose didn’t want to hear it. Already at the door, she spoke with brisk assurance. “They can’t do this. It changes everything. Come on, I can explain. Or you can. You can tell them to…I don’t know…turn back time? Just put me back where you found me.” She pushed at the door, pounded on it. It refused to give.

“I can’t,” he said at her elbow. “And they won’t.”

“Well, then you make them,” she ordered, rounding on him like a lioness.

“Now, see here, young woman,” he began, stiffly but he fell back a step from her violent approach.

“I want…her…back,” she ground out. “Now!”

“This outburst won’t help your cause one bit,” he said, with an infuriating calm. “No one is interested in what you want. You shouldn’t even exist.” He bobbed his chin toward the door. “They want answers. About your pregnancy. About when and where you came from. Who let you travel in that condition? Time travel plays havoc with a pregnancy, with any developing organism. Are your people just learning about temporal relevance? You are obviously human, of course, but…”

“I can’t believe you just let them kill her,” Rose interrupted angrily, tears welling in her eyes and fists white-knuckled at her sides. “Your own dau…granddaughter.”

“Kill her? But they didn’t…We would never…” He broke off mid-denial as her extraordinary claim struck him dumb. It took him less than a heartbeat to recover. “My…? My grand---? Do you mean…” his eyes widened as he said the name, “Susan? Oh…oh…” His mouth dropped open as he remembered something. He raised his chin, stared in a glazed way over her head. “But that’s what you said, isn’t it? I thought it was your name…but no…”

Aware she’d said too much, Rose pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead and thought furiously. The Doctor was still with her. That meant Susan could be saved, somehow. He even knew her name. Without Susan introducing him to the TARDIS, he would never have left Gallifrey, never met her, Rose, so obviously…Susan wasn’t dead. She backtracked in the conversation. Wasn’t that what he’d just said?

“Wait. They didn’t kill her?” It was his turn to look confused and she snorted impatiently. “My baby? They took her but she’s still alive?”

“What kind of question is that? Of course she’s alive,” he sniffed, coming out of his preoccupation with Susan’s history to sneer at Rose's ignorant assumptions. “We aren’t barbarians. They took her from your womb to save her any further distress. She was transferred to a temporally-fixed environment. One designed for optimum fetal development, we call it a Loom. She’ll need genetic reconstruction, mitochondrial surgery, but she’ll be fine. It’s a good job they didn’t time scoop us into the future or the past. They used a straight spatial transfer…anything else would have killed you both. And she’s…Susan? Really?”

“Really,” Rose said, nodding. “And you? You’re Dr. Ishmael…what was it? Mordechi? Honestly? Mordechi?”

“Mordeghi, with a ‘g’,” he corrected, “And I’m just the Doctor.” He bent his knees to peer straight into her eyes. “But you know that, don’t you? We’ve met, I think. Some how…some when…we made this happen. So, do you have a name?”

“Yeah, but I can’t tell you.”

He bobbed his head at the door. “They’ll want to know.”

“I can’t tell them either.”

“So, if I call you Bella does that make it so, I wonder.” He shot her a quizzical look before lifting his line of sight to stare toward the windows. “If you are Susan’s mother… On the paperwork we found it said B.R. and I.M. Foreman. And that’s…that’s me,” he said with wonder, palm touching his chest. “Ishmael Mordeghi Foreman.”

Rose nodded. She, too, knew this much. The Doctor had told her the story of the junkyard. How he and Susan had gone there to find answers about Susan’s past only to find two human companions…Ian and…someone else. “Trotters Lane,” she said.

“You would be the one they call, Bella Ruin?” The Doctor said, in an awed tone. “Though no one knows why. Bella…no…no…” His thoughts were a senseless buzzing in his head. He shook it, swallowing hard before taking a few steps away. “Am I truly her father?” Rose didn’t have to answer him. The truth of it was in her eyes. “I’m my own grandson…? No, my own son. My adopted granddaughter’s biological father, yes?”

“Yes,” Rose confirmed. She couldn’t help laughing at the expression on his face. “It’s like a bad country & western song, yeah?”

He didn’t see the humor in it. The shock was too fresh. He pulled at his hair, as if his head was hurting him and then shuffled over to her and gently touched her shoulder. 

“When did this happen? Relative time for you?”

“I don’t know,” Rose said. “Time is all mixed up, isn’t it? Meaningless.”

“Mixed up, yes. Meaningless, never. Can you tell me why I did this? What happened?” 

Rose heaved a sigh but then wrapped her fingers around his wrist and carried his hand to her belly. Despite the empty place inside, she was sure he could feel the echo of her pregnancy. “What do you think?”

“I think…” he began wonder transforming his face as he took a deep breath, “…it’s impossible.” He drew back, a shutter of denial slammed closed behind his frank green eyes. 

“Why?”

“Because I can’t…father a child that way…because you have no place in time…because…I would never, could never go so far…and I’ve gone pretty far in my time. Further than most of my kind would dare. But this? No! Not willingly. I know myself and there is no way I would ever…”

“What, Doctor?” Rose snapped. “Sleep with a stupid ape-girl?”

“Break those laws,” he said, gently. “Your species is the smallest part of what is wrong with this. And it’s certainly not about sex. We could have sex here and now and I would be considered eccentric, of course. But it wouldn’t create a viable child. There is some other truth. Something you’ve hidden from us, like you’ve hidden your past and your future.” He nodded toward the door again. “And they will have the truth from you. Heed my advice and don’t fight them on this.”

“Fight them? You’re the one who should be fighting. Trying to get us out of this. Can’t you open this stupid door? What about the sonic screwdriver?”

“The sonic…? Now, that brings back memories. I haven’t had my screwdriver in…oh, so very long…not that it matters.” He waved a negligent hand. “The door’s not locked. It operates by a retinal scanner, acknowledging your approach. But it won’t open for a human eye. Which means you and I are stuck here.”

“You’ve got...” Rose wrinkled her nose at him, “What? Someone else’s eyes?”

“Dr. Grace Holloway’s,” he confirmed. “Last thing I saw before the regeneration. It was all white masks and white light, nothing to hold onto. So, her retinas imprinted on me like I was a baby chick. I looked up and…good job, too, because the Master was…” Noticing the way Rose was glaring at him, he sputtered into silence, swallowed down the rest of the story and gave an apologetic little shrug, “I’d tell you I was half-human on my mother’s side but I doubt you’d believe me.”

“Why would you even…? Oh, never mind,” Rose gave a little exasperated huff and, pushing past him, stalked across the room. 

They spent a silent, sulky ten minutes, neither of them willing to speak first. The Doctor, with his hands in his trouser pockets, dipped a toe into the pit full of pillows. Rose with her back to him, stared out the window. Far below her vantage point, people rushed to-and-fro on the elevated walkways spanning the space between the buildings. Occasionally someone flew from one walkway to another. Rose wondered how they did that. A pang tugged at her heart. She would probably never know. On the other hand, she might be stuck here for the rest of her life. All of this had burned. All of it was lost to her Doctor. Maybe she was lost, too. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes at the thought of never seeing him again, of leaving him alone, on his own. 

The Eighth Doctor, who she was beginning to think of as useless, came to stand by her side. She shot a glower at him and, though he was looking straight ahead, he winced. Rose sighed dramatically and, after a brief study of his profile, edged closer to him. Hands in his pockets, eyes on the horizon, he took a sideways step toward her. Their shoulders touched and Rose couldn’t help smiling. Teasing his hand from a pocket, she entwined their fingers. He looked down at her in surprise at the intimate gesture but didn’t pull back, even when she squeezed suggestively.

“Can you get me back to my own time?” She asked, softly. Her eyes full of sensual promises. 

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “How did you get here?”

“I don’t know,” Rose said, her gaze straying to the window. “It’s impossible, isn’t it? Time travel, I mean…without a TARDIS? Or a Tranmat or…something?”

Taking her shoulder, he swung her back to face him. She didn’t turn her head. He stared, long and hard, at her profile before sighing in defeat. “You really don’t know do you?” Eyes still fixed on the view, Rose shook her head. “Well…then…let’s start at the beginning. Time isn’t linear.” She smiled, finally glancing back at him. She knew what he was talking about. He could tell by her bright expression and he grinned at her ready understanding. “You know something of physics, I see. But have you ever envisioned the true shape of time? Seen your own relevance within it?” 

Rose shook her head again. The Doctor pivoted, tugging on her hand. She followed as he drew her with him across the room. She went with some reluctance because he was guiding her gently toward the pit full of pillows. Reaching it, he waded in without pause. Rose hesitated, pulling back hard enough to make him glance over his shoulder at her. 

“I thought we’d get comfortable,” he said, “this could take awhile.” 

Rose wasn’t sure she wanted to get comfortable. Lounging with him seemed a little too decadent, a little too intimate. Who knew where it might lead? But she gave way and let him persuade her into the pit. She slipped on the uneven footing and he had to steady her. His arm snaked around her waist. Coming together, breast to ribcage, they both inhaled sharply, the contact stirring the embers of passion between them. 

He was tall. Lifting her chin, Rose caught and held his eye. His mouth opened slightly, as if he were about to speak and her heart started hammering. She was sure he would kiss her. She could almost taste the draw of his tongue over hers. But, instead, he closed his eyes and, murmuring something like a prayer, stepped away. Rose didn’t move until he offered her his elbow for balance. She took it gingerly, letting him guide her. 

They settled comfortably on the plush pillows, one of the plastic platforms between them. His fingers poked at a hidden panel in the platform and two frosty glasses of a clear beverage arrived with the characteristic buzz and flicker of a transmat device. Choosing a glass, Rose took a tentative sip. The drink was fruity and very refreshing. 

“Time, is more like a great ball,” the Doctor continued, after sampling his own drink. “Or rather an infinite number of tiny globes. Everyone has their own globe. Every thing as well. And all of those minor, subjective existences exist as a subset of an even greater globe. Or ball. Or, some say, wheel - the Wheel of Time.” He sat his drink on the platform, freeing his hands to illustrate the rounded nature of time. Rose nodded, following him so far. “We can move through time because we all exist within the ball…all points on it are accessible. You…or actually…not you, because you’re human and obviously untrained…but a Time Lord, certainly, can corner around reality…move…from one point on the ball to another. Within limits, you understand, and never without great personal risk.” 

He checked to see if she was still with him. She looked more than a little lost. Carefully taking the glass from her hand, he placed it next to his on the platform. “This is our universe,” he went on, using his fingers to cup hers into a ball. Releasing her, he touched the back of one of her knuckles with a fingertip. “You come from beyond this ball of time. From outside the universe as we know it. But…you can’t. That’s impossible. You should not exist.” 

Rose laughed, ducking her head shyly and flashing the tip of her tongue at him. “Now, this is where you look at me like I’ve got the brains of a radish. ‘Cause you’ve totally lost me.” 

“Do I do that?”

“All the time. How can I come from outside when I’m here?”

“Good question,” he said. He picked up his drink and gulped it down before adding, “We don’t know.” He started to get up but Rose shot out a hand and gripped his elbow, holding him back.

“Tell me about these laws,” she said. “Why’s my being pregnant so impossible? You can’t have children? Or a lover? Or what?”

He looked as if he might shake her off for a moment but then he eased down into the pillows again. He studied her intently, his hand drifting toward her cheek. His fingertips brushed her skin and, just for a second, she let him make contact with her thoughts. The mental touch soothed her. But it wasn’t enough to satisfy their bond. Rose burned with shame over the coarse flare of desire blazing through her. She wanted him. Knew he wanted her. She felt him push into her mind, so gentle and sure and almost opened to him. But at the last second, she jerked back. 

“No, we can’t do that. Not now. Tell me about the laws.”

His eyes were glazed and his breathing had gone shallow but he gathered himself and said, “Undue influence.” It seemed as if the words were being pulled from him against his will. As if her gaze, holding his, commanded obedience. “A Time Lord may not, must not, exert undue influence on the stream of time, on the spinning wheel. We can not redirect an individual life.”

Rose thought of her father, an ordinary man alive in the world. She’d caused so much havoc with her impulsive rescue. Because she’d cared too much.

“Time could unravel,” she said.

“Yes.” He scowled, surprised by her understanding. 

To buy a little time, he poked in another order on the platform. A hard orange fruit appeared. Rose watched him peel away the fruit’s rind. She loved to watch his hands whenever he did something absently like setting coordinates or turning pages in a book. His fingers worked without guidance. He had such competence, such unconscious grace. But she noticed a difference in this Doctor’s hands. They were soft and well-manicured, the instruments of an intellectual, a scholar. Her Doctor had working hands, with red, swollen knuckles, tiny cuts and short, often broken, nails. 

“We can’t have everything our way,” he was saying as she mused on the changes in his life. “So, we…detach. We can’t care about outcomes. No subjective emotional ties.”

“What does that mean? You don’t have ties…or emotions?”

“A Time Lord can’t afford the luxury of wanting…needing…desiring. Can’t cherish one person more than any other person…or one result more than another…I can’t run for office or support a candidate or assert that sunny days are the best sort of days…without exerting undue influence.”

Digesting this, Rose nodded absently. She suddenly recalled how her Doctor had spoken ‘just six words’ to Harriet Jones’ assistant and unraveled her government. ‘I could put an end to your government with a single word,’ he’d told her. Did he truly have that kind of power? Had his joy in Harriet made her Prime Minister to begin with? 

“It’s a kind of…charisma,” the Doctor told her. “Being a Time Lord means having the power to shape events to your will. And then denying that power. We can’t afford to have our subjective desires take over. We must always do what’s best for the universe, as a whole, as a thing separate from us.”

“What if you…I don’t know…fell in love or something? Accidentally, I mean.” 

He laughed. “I can’t. It could never happen. I’m not built like that. You and I are…fundamentally…physiologically different.”

“But Omega got all those Greek women pregnant,” Rose argued. “And, Susan…doesn’t she marry a human?”

“Omega was a criminal. And he lived in the distant past, when the Time Lords were ungoverned. He broke most of the Laws of Time. And Susan…I suppose…is your daughter.”

“So you, you’re what? Above it all?”

“No, far from it. I’m a criminal myself. I do exert influence. I meddle. I change things. For the better, I hope. But I was in exile for my crimes when you found me, living out a life on Earth as a rural doctor.” He smiled. “Someone’s idea of a joke. But, even I wouldn’t go so far as you’re suggesting. I can’t change my nature.”

“But…Sarah Jane…you loved her.”

His eyes flashed angrily as he snapped, “What do you know about Sarah Jane?”

“I’ve met her.”

As quick as his anger had ignited, it died away. His whole face lit up. “When? Is she well?”

“Did you love her?” Rose countered, refusing to answer his questions until he answered hers.

He shifted uneasily. She could tell he didn’t want to talk about this. His jaw set in a stubborn line but he turned onto his hip to face her, searching her eyes for some sign of malevolence. Finding none, he finally shrugged and admitted his truth. 

“No,” he said, “I couldn’t. As I’ve told you, it’s against the Laws of Time. Friendship is discouraged. To even speak of…a deeper affection is forbidden. We take an oath. But I found myself…wishing I could…" He sighed. "Wanting things to be different.”

“So you abandoned her? On a roadside?”

“I returned her to her own life. I recognized the danger in…in the wanting. I was becoming too attached. Losing my objectivity. So I moved on before I could break the Law. You see? That’s how it works.”

“I see,” Rose said. She turned her head away and stared sightlessly out the window, the air heavy in her lungs. “So,” she said, after a very long silence, “even if you did…feel something…you couldn’t tell her?”

“Not and remain a Time Lord …no.”

“Could you tell a Time Lady? Someone like…?” 

The door to the apartment opened, cutting Rose off mid-query. Five men entered. Four of them were dressed in long white robes and wore red helmets. A fifth man dressed in burnt orange followed the foursome. He had a coronet on his head and an ornate staff of office. Rose and the Doctor scrambled to their feet and waded to the edge of the pit.

The orange clad official held a scroll out to the Doctor as he declared, “You are summoned to appear before the High Council. There to answer for this human woman you have defiled.”

“He hasn’t defiled me,” Rose yelped, stepping between the Doctor and the guard. “I just met him.”

“You are considered an innocent in this matter,” the official informed Rose, using an impersonal tone. “No harm will come to you if you answer truthfully when questioned.” Turning again to the Doctor he said, “She will be given a mind scan by the Inquisitor. The truth will come out.”

The Doctor looked at Rose and then at the guards. “Yes, all right,” he said. “I did it. I confess. 

END THIS PART


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose faces a Time Lord inquisition. Sadly, they do not believe what she tells them about her relationship with the Doctor. Bad things happen to everyone.

The Doctor looked at Rose and then at the guards. “Yes, all right,” he said. “I did it. I confess. This is all my fault.” The guards exchanged surprised glances. The orange-clad official glowered. 

“How exactly did you manage this, Doctor?” the grim official asked. “In your exile…with no memory.”

“The TARDIS,” the Doctor said, inspired. “I used its resources to inseminate this poor girl in the hopes of….of…uhm…creating a superior humanoid hybrid. If I’d succeeded I would have cloned an army of my chimerical children. Taken over the world. First Earth and then…New Earth…then…New, New…Earth. There truly is no end to my perfidy. And no need to interrogate anyone. Certainly not this...ah…” he shot a glance at Rose, not sure what to call her, “…child. She was merely a…a pawn in my…unholy crusade for universal domination. It all starts in Brighton,” he exclaimed, stabbing his arm toward the window. Two of the guards were thrown off by his antics but the other two closed on Rose. The Doctor tried to intercept them. “Send her back where you found her and we will just call this my fault. Add a few centuries to my sentence…”

“She will see the Inquisitor,” the staff-wielding official said. “President Romana has so ordered.”

“What do I do?” Rose asked the Doctor, panic making her voice crack as a guard took her arm and began marching her toward the door. She caught at the Doctor’s sleeve but was yanked away from him. “I can’t tell them the truth. It’s too much. It could change history. And they’ll never believe me, anyway.”

“You have to. Don’t fight them on this.”

“But…you don’t understand…you don’t…they can’t know what I know.”

The Doctor’s guard hustled him in the opposite direction, out the door and down the hallway. “Trust me,” he called to Rose. “If you fight them, they will go deeper. They will dig until they find what they’re after. Just let them listen to your thoughts. They can’t blame you for any of this.”

Blame her? Rose didn’t like the sound of that. Blame her for what? The Time War? Being lost or pregnant? If they asked her questions, she could remain silent or lie but how was she going to fight off a mental scan? And what would happen if the Time Lords learned about the Doctor’s role in their eventual destruction? Would they execute him, now, while he was in their power? Rose tried to yank free of her captor but he had an iron-fast grip on her elbow. He and a second guard escorted her to a medical laboratory. 

The lab door scanned her guard’s retinas and whooshed open. As they hustled Rose inside, a stooped, kindly-looking woman dressed in midnight-blue robes looked up from watering some plants. The door hissed closed behind the guards with an ominous finality. They let go of Rose’s arms and took up flanking positions at the only exit. 

“Welcome, child,” the elderly lady said. Her voice had a soothing musical lilt and she smiled as she held out her hands to Rose. “I’m Ellimecia, the High Inquisitor.” When Rose ignored her extended hands, she gestured toward a partially reclined chair. “Please, have a seat. Relax. Would you like a beverage…some fruit…before we begin?”

Rose shook her head. Shooting a glance over her shoulder, she considered bolting for the door. The plump little old lady probably wouldn’t be able to stop her. But the guards looked like they could. 

“Mind probing sounds invasive,” the Inquisitor was saying. “But it needn’t be the least bit unpleasant. Simply breathe freely and deeply. I assure you…I am very capable. Sit. Sit.”

Rose went to the chair like she was going to the gallows. She sat. Breathed deep and tried to find that shaman state of mind her textbook had recommended. There was writing on the chair arms and on posters decorating the walls. Warnings, Rose thought. She relaxed as best she could and stared at one of the posters. It looked decorative, like a work of art. A stab of inspiration struck and she thought about looking around the circular letters instead of directly at them. 

**-You Have The Right To Legal Representation During Questioning –**

Rose blinked and her brief flash of literacy ended abruptly. But aloud she said, “I want representation.”

Ellimecia paused in her approach. She followed Rose’s gaze to the poster, and then glanced at the guards before saying, “Does she have legal counsel?”

“The Doctor,” Rose said, grasping at the straw of hope. “He can represent me.”

“I’m sorry, child. The Doctor is the one on trial.” She nodded to a guard. “You will represent her.” 

The guard saluted and stepped forward to take Rose’s wrist in his cold hand. She shrank from his touch, only to find Ellemecia stroking her temple. Rose experienced the sensual overload of mental probing as both Time Lords entered her mind. The chair under her, the posters in front of her and the people around her winked out of existence. She found herself in a featureless, bare room, standing across from her Inquisitor and the indifferent Representative. Rose only needed a moment to figure out what was happening. This was like the bonding part of Time Lord Sex but without the pleasant aphrodisiac, without the Doctor to comfort her. She was being molested, in an imaginary room. This was how they would pick her brain apart. As soon as she realized it, Rose instinctively threw up blockades, creating a maze around her. 

Her defensive walls dissolved like sugar cubes under a splash of hot tea. Lady Ellimecia skillfully maneuvered around them. Images and fears and memories assaulted Rose when the Inquisitor did a preliminary shuffle through her thoughts. Defenseless and panicking, Rose created doors only to have them flung open. Quickly backed into the corner of the room, with nowhere to run, she concentrated on one particular door in her mind. As she turned toward this last safe place, the imaginary room expanded, became the stormy plain of her initial encounter with the Doctor’s mind. The door she sought glowed golden in the distance. Rose didn’t know what was behind the it, only that the Doctor avoided it and it was the only defense she had left against this violation. 

Ellimecia loomed above her, in the clouds and the lightning. Trapped on the wind-ravaged plains of her mind, Rose ran for the door. With her gown wiping around her legs, she silently urged the High Inquisitor to give up the chase. _Don’t follow. Don’t follow. There are dragons._ Of course, suggesting an Inquisitor avoid a particularly dangerous door was a childish ploy, doomed to fail from the start. Rose’s pathetic pleas didn’t even slow the High Inquisitor down. 

Luckily, perhaps lamentably, the Council had other Inquisitors. 

They had, as it turned out, twelve in all. Rose and the unfortunate guard who represented her (mostly because they could not pry his hand free of her wrist) met all but two of them.

Eventually, someone had the good sense to summon the Doctor.

 

****************************************************************

 

“Rose!” the tenth Doctor exclaimed, rushing to wrest her limp weight from his younger self. The first thing he noticed beyond faces was her gown. As he gathered her to his chest, he said, “You’ve been to Gallifrey.” There was no question. He could smell the spicy aroma in her hair. The second thing he noticed was her missing child. “Susan? What happened?”

“What do you think happened?” His eighth-self snapped irritably. He looked haggard and as nervous as a bird in a roomful of cats. He kept glancing over his shoulder. And good Lord, was he really wearing a purple satin waistcoat? The tenth Doctor found himself momentarily distracted by the repulsive garment. “She appeared in my time…during my exile. A human woman time-traveling on her own…pregnant with our…with your, child…just…appears, and you ask what happened? They happened,” Eight said, leaning in and spreading his arms wide. “She’d only just arrived when they swooped down on us like the Final Judgment.” He used his thumb to tick the groups off the fingers of one hand. “Romana, the Imperial Guard, the Senate, the Council and all of their Inquisitors. What were you thinking, letting her wander like that?”

“I didn’t let her wander. She just…,” Ten sighed, too exhausted to explain. “She was trying to learn Gallifreyan and…” he shook his head and sighed, again, “When it’s your job to contain her, you’ll understand.” Suddenly recalling the danger they were in, he spoke with weary resignation, “You shouldn’t be here. I don’t remember you here. And crossing our time line is more perilous than you could possibly know.”

His more elegantly-attired self nodded. “Something’s gone wrong, hasn’t it? On Gallifrey?” He jutted his chin at Rose. “Was she involved?” 

“Rose? Of course not!” The Doctor curled his lip in disdain. Had he ever been this naïve…this poetically soft? On the heels of the thought came a flash of memory: Eight’s well-manicured hands sticky and slick with blood, snatching a weapon from a fallen comrade. The Doctor shuddered and focused for a moment on Rose. Then, he glanced up the aisle, a frown puckering his brow. “How did you get here?” 

“I heard you calling her,” Mr. Manicure said, twisting to point over his shoulder, “from the TARDIS library. I rounded the corner and there you were.” 

“You shouldn’t have come,” the Doctor mumbled. “But thank you.” Eyes fixed on Rose’s pale face he watched the flicker of her eyelids. He could sense the steady rise and fall of her chest. She was alive. The words became a joyful refrain in his head…she’s alive…alive. “I have to go. You can find your way back?”

“They’ve set a beacon for me.”

“The light,” the Doctor said, remembering, seeing it when he looked closer. He couldn’t help contemplating it. His mouth stayed open as he thought about he fellow Time Lords waiting just on the other side of that beacon. Then, he caught himself and, adjusting Rose to a less awkward position in his arms, turned to go. “They’ll erase your memory, of course, patch and spackle over any inconsistencies in space/time. It’s what they do.”

“No. Not this time” Eight reached out, catching his elbow. “Wait. I need to know about her.”

“You know.” 

“She wouldn’t tell them,” his younger self murmured. Stepping in close, he stroked a hand through Rose’s hair. “Or me. Not really. And she…she did things…things I don’t understand.”

“They took her child,” Ten said, over-enunciating to get his point across. “They took Susan. Just snatched her from her mother’s womb, without any thought of…consequences…without feeling…” Ten choked on his own sense of loss, the sentence grinding to a standstill and then gruffly said, “You want to know what happened? Figure it out for yourself.”

“There’s something about her…something you wanted to copy…you engineered an embryo…implanted it…to what purpose?”

“It was far more organic than that,” the tenth Doctor sighed. “We are one. This didn’t happen in a laboratory. She’s my…our…other half. My true companion.”

The eighth Doctor blinked in disbelief, and then flinched; jerking his hand away from Rose as if touching her skin might contaminate him. “That’s impossible. No, truly. Even more than meddling…or…caring… I thought we might care for her…but…What about the oath?”

“I’ve honored it…but…can’t you sense it in her mind? Doesn’t she draw you in?”

“Her mind,” Eight groaned, casting his gaze to the ceiling. “All right, it’s…compatible, yes, in harmony with ours. Flexible when I pushed on it, like the heart of time itself. But this…?” He shook his head, still refusing to believe. Then, he opened and closed his mouth, struggling to find words for what he had to say next. He avoided his own eye as he said, “They had to get me when… She would only yield to me.” Ten frowned, not understanding, and Eight took a deep breath before rushing on. “They tried to pry the truth from her mind…a different truth, one they could believe.”

Ten went cold and pale. He couldn’t think clearly. He couldn’t see for the white fury closing in on him. “They did what?” Without pausing to consider her condition, he reached out to Rose with his thoughts, reached out like a lover. There was no hint of her former personality, no warm greeting for him, only the simmering heat of a raging fire. She burned like a sun.

“She fought,” Eight explained, breathlessly, “I told her not to, but, she didn't understand the process. How could they believe what she told them? What I first saw in her mind made no sense at all. She can wield time like a weapon? You fathered her child? It all seemed...” He spread his fingers, grasping for understanding, “...impossible.”

The Doctor wasn’t listening. His legs gave way and he sank to his knees, cradling Rose in his arms, rocking her as he murmured, “Oh…no! No.” His fingers cupped her cheek as once again he braved the fire, only to be rudely rebuffed by a warning flash of pain. Hot tears blinded him, streaked down his cheeks. “How many?” he asked, his voice quaking as he laid Rose down, smoothed her hair. He made her as comfortable as he could on the floor. 

“I did try to intercede. But you know how stubborn they can be.”

“How--many?” Ten shouted, surging to his feet.

Eight edged a few steps closer to his escape beacon. “Nine. Nine, in all, trained Inquisitors. They weren’t trying to harm her. She fought. She ran.”

“Of course she ran. Did none of you, not one of you, think she might know MORE than you?”

“Someone finally thought that, yes. They called me, during the tenth attempt to breach her defenses.” His curious gaze dipped to Rose, again, as he offered what comfort he could. “She’s...” He took a shuddering breath. “I don’t know what she is, other than quite strong-willed. She should recover her sense of self.” 

Fingers curling into claws, the Doctor stepped around Rose, snarling, “Go! While you still can.” It wasn’t a veiled threat or an empty one. He glared at the other Doctor, hating himself. Hating all Time Lords. His gaze slipped to the side, moving beyond his own guilt to the place where the beacon still glowed dimly. It would be so easy to follow it home. Just for a moment, he thought of going back to watch it all burn again. Then, he managed to control the urge. “Get out of here before I complicate your simple life,” he said, turning his back on his own innocence.

“Yes, I should go. If I remember any of this, I’ll petition President Romana about the child. I promise you, I’ll be as involved as I can.”

“You won’t remember,” Ten said, his weary monotone indicating he'd already lost interest in his past. He stared down at Rose, through the murky glaze over his eyes. “We both know what happened to Susan. We remember when we met her. What we thought.” Kneeling, he gathered Rose to his chest again. He curled his body protectively around her, pressing his lips to her temple. 

At a loss for words, Eight stood silent and, for a solemn moment, contemplated his future, a future so grimly altered he’d become a stranger to himself. What could have happened? Why was the universe so achingly quiet? Where were his people? Their order? Their law? Was there nothing left to rebel against but sanity? 

Had he gone insane? It seemed to be the only explanation. Insanity explained the loss of his objectivity. It might even account for his taking this quasi-human creature as his true companion. Surely, she was a danger to all of creation. Yet, he didn’t seem to know. Or see. Or care.

Realizing that, for once, he’d come to the outer limits of his nearly limitless curiosity, the eighth Doctor shook his head and, stepping backward, vanished around a corner in time.

 

END THIS PART


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor takes Rose to the only place he imagines she will find peace. Home to her mother. He has no idea how to help her recover and it is all he can do to contain his rage and shame.

Jackie Tyler was stuffing a chicken when she heard the grating rhythm signaling the arrival of the TARDIS. She’d been singing along at the top of her voice to a blaring rendition of ‘Spin Me Right Round’ by Dead or Alive, but the unique whooping sound had her fumbling messily for the radio dial. Her first thought was that Rose hadn’t phoned to say they were coming. Her second thought was a criticism of the Doctor. By the volume of the noise, she could tell without turning around that, despite her asking him three times now not to do it, he had materialized his stupid Police Box right in the middle of the flat again. It’d be blocking the telly and they’d all be banging their elbows and stubbing their toes on the ridiculous thing for the next few days. Plus, no paying clients allowed in the house until he and Rose pushed off. Fate of the world and all that rubbish. And Gracie Padgett was due at 4:30 for a root touch-up. That’s aliens for you, she thought. Inconsiderate the lot of them. With no practical idea how to make a living either. How he managed to keep Rose fed was beyond her. 

Snatching up a towel, Jackie hurriedly wiped the chicken fat and bits of breading from her fingers, determined this time to give the Doctor a reason to remember her house rules. Rule one: Don’t park your time machine in my lounge. Rule two: Under this roof, Rose sleeps in her own bed. Rule three: Alone! And I mean it. No sneaking about after hours. You think I can’t hear the two of you giggling in there? Rule four: Sit on the furniture not on the floor. For Heaven’s sake, don’t they have sofas where you come from?

She yanked the oven door open, trying to remember rule five, which had something to do with Martian dining habits. As the wave of heat stirred her hair, it dawned on her she hadn’t heard Rose or the Doctor sing out a hello. She quickly tented the chicken and shoved it into the oven, raising her voice to yell as she did, “Rose? Is that you?”

Stupid question. Of course it was Rose. Who else came calling in a time machine? But still, it was so quiet. They weren’t quiet people, either of them. Cautious as any primitive in the face of the unknown, Jackie eased a butcher knife from the block and crept to the doorway. She peered around the corner at the TARDIS. It looked ominous to her, just crouched there on its own. Its door gaped wide, like a great mouth waiting to swallow her down. There was no sign of Rose or the Doctor. 

On that first terrible day when she’d learned about the Doctor being an alien, Rose had, also, told her the TARDIS was alive. Having just been inside the thing, Jackie had shuddered and asked what it ate. A perfectly reasonable question, really. Anyone might have asked. There’d been no need for him to fix his blue eyes on her and say ‘puppies and defenseless little girls’ in a cold monotone. And then to start braying with laughter like that. One thing about this new bloke, he had marginally better manners than the other one. Though she still couldn’t say she was happy about Rose taking up with him. He was ten times scarier than Jimmy Stone ever was. Well, except Rose was happy. And that was something. But why she couldn’t find a nice man with a car and maybe an office job, Jackie was sure she would never understand.

She was thinking about weddings, Rose getting married in an off-white lace gown to this hypothetical ‘nice man’, when the Doctor came out of the TARDIS with Rose in his arms. So, it was understandable that, just for a second, she misunderstood. She saw the pale yellow gown, saw Rose cradled like a bride being carried across the threshold, and felt a rush of jumbled emotions. All of them powered the bellow of her lungs as she screeched, “Now what have you gone and done?”

The Doctor’s whole body jerked. He caught his elbow a glancing blow on the TARDIS doorway, swiftly checked on Rose, and then looked toward Jackie. The hollow despair in his eyes pierced her soul. A swift, true understanding flashed between them. Blame was laid and accepted in the heartbeat before Jackie’s gaze dropped to Rose, pale and still in his arms. “Oh, God,” she breathed, as her vision went blurry. Hand to her mouth, fingers pressing her lips, she murmured, “Oh, God, my baby. Is she…?” 

She couldn’t say it, couldn’t complete the horrendous thought. Rose couldn't be dead. Luckily, the Doctor understood and shook his head or Jackie might have fainted. Reassured, she started toward him. He avoided her, stepping to the side, keeping Rose hidden with his coldly turned shoulder.

“Bedroom,” he said. And Jackie nodded, obeying without question because, for once in her life, she felt sure he knew best. 

Rushing ahead of him, she pushed open the door and held it until he entered Rose’s room. Then, she darted forward to turn back the coverlet on the bed. While the Doctor settled her daughter’s apparently lifeless body comfortably, Jackie fidgeted and fretted--longing to question him, but afraid of what he might say. She watched him sweep Rose’s hair up, so her bare neck rested against the cool pillow. He smoothed her gown, brushing a hand down her body with an unconscious intimacy. His sure touch confirmed what Jackie had long suspected: they were lovers. 

Once he was satisfied Rose was resting easy, the Doctor took her wrist in a light grip, checking her pulse. His lips tightened, turned down at the corners. Releasing her wrist, his fingers trailed a gentle caress across Rose's palm while his other hand went to her temple, tentatively touching it. He flinched, pulled away from her, and then sank to the edge of the mattress. After a moment, he slid to the floor in a hopeless heap. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, still holding onto Rose’s hand like it was his lifeline. “I’m so sorry.”

“What happened?” Jackie whispered. “Is she…sick? Hurt?" When he didn't answer, she became insistent. "Doctor?”

She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t want to risk making him angry before he told her it was all going to be fine. His chin had fallen to his chest. Wearily, he lifted his head, turning to look at her. “She was…” He met Jackie’s eye and the short hairs on her arms stirred in apprehension. She could tell by the wariness in him that he didn’t plan to tell her the truth. Was it that horrible, she wondered? Or was he just being condescending? 

“Tell me,” she said, trying to sound as mature as she could. “She’s my daughter. I have a right to know.”

He studied her for a long moment before nodding mechanically. Jackie waited, but he didn’t say anything. He seemed to be pleading with her, silently. His face reflected dazed confusion, as if he’d taken a beating recently and hadn’t recovered his senses. His mouth moved and she could tell he was searching for a way to explain something, something he didn’t want to contemplate or wasn’t sure she would understand. What could be so horrible?

“Was it…alien?” she guessed.

He nodded again. Eyes drifting to Rose, his fingers clenched tight around hers. “She was…” he said again. And then, breathed out one word, “…violated.”

For a second, Jackie’s brain stalled. Women she knew had been…violated, caught on the street unaware or trapped in a brutal relationship. She associated that word with bruises and cut lips and shuddering sobs. Rose looked so peaceful and perfect. Befuddled by the contradiction, Jackie took a moment to study the Doctor. His grimy, rumbled suit, the week’s growth of beard and his haunted expression told a more complete story. Violation. Rape. Some alien…thing had…had assaulted her little girl, her sweet Rose. Jackie thought about the butcher knife and glanced down to find it still in her hand. 

“Is it dead?” she asked, barely recognizing the gruff rumble of her own voice. “Did you kill it?”

The Doctor looked lost. “I wasn’t there,” he said.

But when he ducked his head, Jackie read the guilt in him, as easily as she might read between the headlines in a tell-all circular at the checkout counter. He’d been there. Or he’d been able to stop it. Somehow he was responsible. Her knuckles tensed, whitening as she gripped the knife handle tighter.

“Why not? You promised me. Promised you’d keep her safe. Bring her home safe. It’s your job.”

The Doctor nodded. “My job,” he agreed, remorsefully.

Jackie wasn’t satisfied with his contrition. She drew herself up to her full height. “You should go,” she said. 

“Not ‘til she wakes up.”

“Now. I want you to go, now.” She stabbed her knife point toward the door. “Get out of my house.”

He lifted his chin and met her steely glare with an even harder, colder one. “When she wakes up, I’ll see what she wants…what she needs,” he said. 

“Don’t you care about her at all?” Jackie cried, knowing he did care, knowing it was the worst thing she could say, but more than willing to use his guilt against him if it would protect Rose. 

He didn’t even wince just sighed heavily and let his eyelids droop, his head loll against the bed edge. She took the lash of her tongue to him, berating him for another twenty minutes. He pinched the bridge of his nose between a thumb and two fingers and waited for her to finish. When she finally paused for breath, he opened his eyes and dismissed her with all the imperious ease of the manor-born. “Go. See to your dinner,” he said, wafting a negligent hand.

“This is my home,” Jackie snapped. “And she’s my daughter. And I won’t have you…”

“If you upset her, if you keep on like this,” he warned, softly, not even paying her the courtesy of looking at her as he spoke. “I’ll take her somewhere else, somewhere quiet and safe.”

“But…she needs me,” Jackie protested. “She needs her mother.”

“I know,” he said, his gaze fixed on Rose’s untroubled face. He leaned toward her, until his fingers could toy with a strand of her hair. “That’s the only reason we’re here.”

 

*******************************************************************

He knew he’d upset Jackie. Knew, even sympathized with, her fears. But he was glad when she pushed off and left him with Rose. They needed to be alone together. Somewhere Rose would feel safe. And he could think of no place safer than back home, in her own bed. The familiar surroundings, the comforting turn of her home planet, the steady time stream and her personal history should soothe her, ground her. She would remember herself here, he was certain of it.

He carried her hand to his lips. “You’re home,” he murmured, into the shell of her partially closed palm.

“Home,” she mumbled in her sleep. 

The Doctor started to attention. His blood sang and his lungs clenched at the response. He launched himself up onto the bed, landing like a cat in a slight crouch above her. They were nose to nose, his bent arms held his weight off her chest. His hands were braced to either side of her shoulders. His one knee nudged her hip. The other leg extended to the floor, balancing him. Breathing raggedly, he searched her face from some flicker of awakening intellect. He said her name.

Nothing. He waited. She stirred, shifting under him, arching toward him until her breast pressed against his chest. But she settled back, falling quickly into a deeper slumber. Releasing a pent sigh, the Doctor collapsed to the side in defeat. Head pillowed next to hers, he kept his arm across her belly, used it to draw her into him as he allowed one leg to slide between her knees. This was how they should sleep every night, he thought, every night from now on. 

If only she would come back to him. 

************************************************************

“Will she ever come back?” Jackie asked two days later as she watched the Doctor inject another vial of what he called ‘nutrients’ into her daughter’s unflinching arm. 

He emptied the syringe and set it aside without looking at Jackie. Then, he picked up the steaming cup of tea she’d brought him and, settling to the floor, took a sip before saying, “I don’t know.”

He’d been telling her nothing but that for the last 48 hours. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. Would the woman never get it through her thick head? He didn’t know. He had no idea what was happening in Rose’s mind. He’d tried to reach her but the Wolf still howled in her skull. All he could do was wait and hope. But time wasn’t on his side: if she didn’t wake up soon, he’d have to take her to hospital. Despite his blood-purifying injections, dehydration and septicemia would set in if she didn’t resume normal renal function by morning.

Fully expecting Jackie to tell him there was no need to be rude, he was caught off guard when she spoke mildly. “I can sit with her for a while, if you want a break to…change or use the bathroom.”

Tipping his head back, he smiled at her but turned the offer down. “I’m all right.”

“No, really, you’re a bit whiffy,” she told him, pinching her nose with one hand as if he reeked. “Smells all alien…like, I don’t know, some kind of metal or an old coal furnance, when you first light one in the wintertime, and something else..." She snapped her fingers, and then pointed at him, "Chinese takeaway.”

His smile became a wide grin. “No one’s ever mentioned that to me before,” he admitted. “I wonder why.”

She gave a careless shrug. “Probably just being polite,” she said, nodding sagely after she took a sip of her tea. Then, she focused on him. “Seriously, don’t you ever change your clothes? It’s always the same with you. First, the leather jacket and jumper, now, the same brown and blue suit whenever you visit.”

“I love this suit,” he said, glancing down with pride as he plucked up the lapel between his finger and thumb. “Why would I change it?”

“People do.”

Holding his teacup aloft, he gracefully flowed to his feet from his seat on the bedroom floor. He’d taken his shoes off again. He kept doing that, like he was foreign or something, Jackie thought. She watched him sashay languidly to the dresser mirror and take a measured look at himself. Grimacing a bit, he tipped his head this way and that and ran a hand along his stubbly jaw. Then, he met her eye in the mirror.

“I’m not people,” he said. 

“Oh, and you don’t have to tell me,” she returned, pointedly, a neat backhand off his conversational volley. He couldn't help but smile, just a little. She took on a wheedling tone as she went on, “But you could shower, at least. Or shave. It’s got to be unsanitary in a sick room. Besides,” she nodded at Rose, “she wakes up and sees you looking like two-for-one night at the pub…it’ll scare the life out of her.”

The Doctor drained his tea in a long guzzle and set the cup on the dresser top with a decisive clunk. “Yes, all right,” he said. “Do you still have that dressing gown?”

“Howard’s? Yeah. I’ll say one thing; it lasted longer than he ever did. In the bathroom. Hook on the back of the door. But don’t you have your own…” She got no further, squeaking in sharp protest when he tossed his suit jacket at her. “Hey! Here now! I didn’t mean….”

“No bleach, cold water soak and tumble dry low,” he said, speaking over her as he hurriedly stepped out of his trousers. 

He flung them across the end of the bed, followed by his shirt and coordinated undershirt. He retained only his y-front briefs. Jackie barely had a chance to sweep an accessing gaze over him, noting his lithe figure, too light skin, slender fitness and the sprinkling of dark hair on his chest that lined down his belly, before he took off. 

“I’m not washing your clothes,” she said and then, realizing he was gone, she stepped to the door and called after him, “I’m not washing your clothes.”

He popped his head into the hall from the bathroom and said, “You’re the one they’re offending,” as if she was being completely unreasonable. Then he flashed a grin that told her in no uncertain terms that he’d seen through her plan to barricade him in the TARDIS when he went to change. 

Huffing, Jackie withdrew to gather up his suit and shirts. She considered ruining them with bleach and hot water but decided she couldn’t put it past him to walk around nude if she did. She wondered if Rose would ever forgive her if she accidentally poisoned his tea. Not that it would get rid of him but it might give her a bit of satisfaction. Of course, with her luck, the next Doctor would be even more annoying.

 

**********************************************************

 

Hair damp and sticking up in tufts, but shaved and showered, the Doctor reappeared about thirty minutes later. Jackie was just checking the dryer. He padded by her, moist soles sucking at the floor vinyl, and checked in the fridge for something sweet. It was always the sugar with him. He took the last bit of juice, she noticed, without so much as a by-your-leave. She shot him a quelling look, but he ignored her. 

"I was saving that for breakfast," she grumbled. Then, focusing on his bare chin, she yelped, “Did you use my razor?”

He shook his head, drank the final swigs from the juice bottle and then said, “No telling where that’s been. Got a new one from the cabinet.”

Insulted and appalled on about six levels, her voice hit a very high note as she asked, “Do you know how much those things cost?”

“Did you want me to use yours?” he cried, his mouth twisting into a sneer. He couldn’t believe the things she could make a fuss over. “They’re disposable. How dear can they be?”

“Two quid a packet,” she snapped. “And the juice isn't free either.”

“Fine,” he huffed, as he put the empty bottle on the counter. “Make a list. Soon as Rose is better we’ll go shopping and…”

A scream tore through the air, “Doctor?”

Rose.

He beat Jackie in the race to the kitchen doorway but not by much. Elbowing one another in their haste, they dashed down the hall and into the bedroom. Rose was sitting up, but staring sightlessly ahead, her face a mask of horror. A golden fire burned in her eyes. Slamming to a halt, the Doctor put an arm up, blocking Jackie from rushing to her daughter’s side. She scrambled to get around him. He was forced to turn his back on Rose to contain her mother.

“Wait. Think,” he said. “Let me go first.”

Jackie’s head was lowered for a bullish charge but the Doctor’s measured tone caught her attention. Slowly lifting her chin, she met his eye and, seeing the warning there, muttered a half-hearted concurrence. He studied her a bit longer as if he didn’t quite believe she’d given up. Then, releasing her, he pressed his palm toward her nose, wordlessly insisting she stay where she was. Reluctantly, she nodded. He backed away, keeping his palm up and holding her gaze intently, as if she were a dog in obedience training. She craned her neck to see around him. Rose hadn’t moved. 

The Doctor pivoted when he reached the foot of the bed. Moving with extreme trepidation, he settled next to Rose and called her name, softly, tenderly. “Rose? Can you hear me?”

“Doctor?”

Rose’s head bobbed uncertainly as she turned it toward the sound of his voice. She stared over his shoulder, didn’t focus on him at all. Jackie gave a strangled cry. 

“What’s wrong with her eyes?” she demanded. “What have they done to her, Doctor? Is she blind?” As she rushed the end of the bed, Jackie’s high-pitched screeching hit a register that could have stripped the paint from the walls. “Can’t she see? Rose, sweetheart, can you see me?” 

“Stop it,” the Doctor snarled, angling his head toward Jackie but keeping his gaze fixed on Rose. Chin elevated, he stared down his nose at her, working things out in his mind. “Stop thinking that, believing it. She’s not. It’s not an option.” Returning his entire attention to Rose, he drew an audible breath as he reached for her. His fingertips grazed her temple and he stiffened. Recoiling, as if he’d been slapped, he managed to maintain a tentative contact with her skin. Air hissed from between his clenched teeth. A shudder wracked him. “Rose,” he groaned. “Close the…” It was no good. He lurched back, panting. Mouth opening and closing, eyes blinking rapidly, he cradled his hand to his chest for a moment and then swallowed hard and said, “…the door. Close the door.”

“Is she cold, do you think?” Jackie asked, moving to obey him. Making certain not to slam it, she carefully shut the bedroom door. “Should I get a blanket? We’ve a spare blanket in the closet. Or a hot water bottle? A nice hot water bottle for her feet? There’s always been a bit of a draft down that hall. I’ve spoken to the management. But all they do is bring up the doors we’ve already had replaced. Thanks to you, I might add.” The Doctor twisted around to glower at her. His scowl said it all: he thought she’d gone mad. “I’m just saying other people don’t have Christmas trees cutting through their…”

Rose snickered. And the Doctor lost all interest in Jackie’s ramblings. His head whipped until he was eye-to-eye with Rose. He bounced on the bed, going up on his knees and seizing her by the shoulders. She looked back at him, fully aware. She beamed at him. Her dark eyes danced with good humor, sharing the joke of her mother’s confusion. Not daring to believe, to hope, the Doctor searched her face. She looked just as questioningly at him but he studied her with a mixture of awe and fear in his eyes. 

“What?” she finally asked. 

Joy swelled the Doctor’s chest, almost cutting off his air. He had no thoughts in his head at all, only her name repeating and repeating as a singing chant. Transferring his grip from her shoulders to her face, he pulled Rose to him for a long, desperate kiss. He poured his love into her, over her, like healing water. He willed her to stay with him, be whole again.

She didn’t respond. Not in the slightest. Her hands remained folded in her lap. Her body shifted with him but not in sensual harmony. She moved only because he manipulated her. He tipped her head with his hands, her lips opened because his opened. She was malleable but not interested. Indifferent. Her mind reflected the room, giving him nothing of her thoughts. The Doctor opened his eyes and slowly settled back. 

“I’m sorry,” Rose began, “I don’t…”

“Oh, sweetheart, you’re awake,” Jackie cried, surging forward, coming between them. “Are you all right? You’ve had us so worried. Dead to the world you’ve been for nearly three days. And this one’s been no help at all.” 

Jackie’s hip shoved the Doctor aside as she drew Rose into a hug, kissing her forehead and then her cheek. Rose’s hands came up to slide around her mother’s waist. When she laid her head on Jackie’s shoulder, the Doctor felt an irrational stab of jealousy, followed closely by an avalanche of guilt and self-recrimination. Why should she respond to him like that? This entire mess had been his fault. He’d burdened her with an unwanted child, and then put her through the loss of it. He’d failed to protect her. His people had assaulted her. Feeling miserable and superfluous, he got up and, hunched against the hurt, shuffled to the door, looking back only once before leaving mother and daughter to their bonding. Rose didn’t even notice him go.

 

******************************************************

For the next few days, Rose rested and he tinkered. It was what he always did when landlocked, planetlocked. But this time, it wasn’t busy work. The TARDIS had responded sluggishly on their way to Earth, as if her heart weren’t in the trip. The Doctor could relate and maybe she was only picking up on his anxious mood. But he couldn’t afford not to run the necessary diagnostics. He’d learned to follow up on any suspected maintenance issues. With Gallifrey gone, there was no putting her into a shop for a complete overhaul if some minor problem snowballed. The TARDIS kept running or he stopped. They had only each other to rely on.

So, he pocketed a few tools, took off his jacket, rolled up his shirt sleeves and went to work. He yanked a section of floor grating to one side and followed a spiral staircase down to the primary engine room. After some investigation, he pulled the central stabilizer from the rotor drive and began stripping it of gunk. One of the pinions had a tiny nick. The Doctor examined the flaw, rubbing a greasy thumb over it. It wasn’t enough to cause the listlessness he’d sensed but the pinion would have to be replaced. He thought about what he might use to repair it. And how he might dissipate some of the stress his ship was under.

Talk to Rose. 

He choked a little and, craning his neck, shot a suspicious look at the underside of the console far above his head. The TARDIS was generally empathic not telepathic. It wasn’t like her to put flat-out suggestions in his head. ‘I have, I will,’ he thought back at her. Then, stroking a hand along the nearest organic support, he added, ‘don’t worry.’ She soaked up the streak of oil his caress left behind and purred contentedly, a steady thrum all around him. It burrowed into his marrow. He couldn’t help smiling a little. The TARDIS was as alien to him as he was to Jackie, but he loved her and believed she loved him in her way. All he had was the belief, of course. Her responses were erratic, far more than any other ship of her kind. And she never expressed more than vague affection via their mental link. But from the day they’d bonded, he’d always felt an attraction between them. Platonic, of course, because what else could it be?

He moved on to the hydraulic fission system, topping off lubricant levels before turning his attention to the command grid. The oft-patched and bizarrely cross-wired circuitry acted as liaison between the console above and the organic mind of the TARDIS. Technically, according to collective Time Lord Wisdom, the TARDIS didn’t have a mind. She wasn’t sentient in the accepted sense of the word. The grid did her thinking for her, translating his commands into action and her basic needs into requests. If she was having a bad feeling about something, it was nothing more than a glitch in the grid, a loose wire. However, the Doctor had known her a long time and he wasn’t completely sure it was that simple. 

But he was on his back, checking for loose connections, when he heard a light step on the stairs. Tilting his head, he saw Rose’s feet come into view, followed in time by the rest of her. She bounced rhythmically to the bottom of the stair. Pausing at floor level to hang onto the hand railing, she swung to and fro as she solemnly considered him. Her hair was in braided pigtails, like a little girl, and she wore a fluffy-soft, powder-pink pullover and gray sweats. Without any greeting for him, she sat down on the third step, knees together; elbows braced one on each thigh. The Doctor went on working. He was comfortable with her watching. She often did. Sparks arced as he used the screwdriver to fuse a wire into place. He tentatively flipped a switch and crowed in delight when a series of lights started blinking in response. 

“Got is sorted?” Rose asked.

He curled partway off the floor to see her better. Smiling, he said, “Just about. Are you ready to be off?” She shrugged, avoiding eye contact. Relaxing back down, he pushed a finger into a dead socket, clearing it of debris, and then murmured. “We were just talking about you.”

“I thought my ears were burning.”

“We…that is, I…thought…you might want to…” he took a deep breath and shot out his question all at once. “With everything that’s happened, do you want to stay?” He had to ask. It had to get out in the open. 

There was a long pause before Rose said, “Yeah,” very softly. 

He should have seen it coming. But he truly hadn’t and he couldn’t help glaring at her in hurt surprise. She didn’t notice his grimace. She was looking at the floor in front of her, trying to toe a hole in it with her shoe. “Oh,” he puffed, blinking rapidly, “Right…well, then we’ll just…uh…that is…I’ll…be…uh…” On his way, he’d be on his way. Alone. Without Rose. No Rose.

His throat closed on a lump. Swallowing against it, he felt a signature burn in his chest. Oh, Rassilon preserve him he was going to cry. To forestall the reaction, he transferred his screwdriver to his mouth. Closing his teeth around it and biting down hard on the handle, he took an extreme interest in the wiring above him. Not that there was anything wrong with the wiring. Or with crying. He always let go during Lassie, Come Home, for example. But in this context it would definitely qualify as undue influence. Rose had to think he was perfectly happy with her decision. ‘Be British,’ he thought. 

“If it’s okay with you,” she was saying, as he fought for composure. “I just want to feel more…”

“Mmmhph,” he said, around the screwdriver handle, hoping the mumble conveyed a sense of a support.

Apparently, it hadn’t. “Come on, it’s not that bad,” Rose said. “You can put up with my Mum for a few more days.”

“Daves?” he remarked, before remembering to remove the screwdriver. “Days? I…oh, no, no…” his throat was exposed, his eyes very wide and staring, “I mean…yes, a few more or less, of course, is…fine.” He didn’t know what to do with his hands. Or the screwdriver. He finally shoved all into his trouser pockets. “Topping. Yes, why not? Bit of a holiday. Could use a break in the routine, a few days, a week…even. Perfectly natural to want your mother…time like this.”

“You don’t mind?”

Withdrawing a hand from his pocket, he waved off her worry. “Oh, Jackie and I are getting along splendidly,” he lied, cutting his eyes to the side as he did, and nodding several times, somewhat less than convincingly. “Once I got used to her scree…uh, voice…and the accounting for…food…and…soap…and,” he finished all in one breath, “every drop of hot water.”

“Well, it’s not easy, yeah? Being on your own, raising a child?” Rose said. “You have to keep track of things.” And there it was…the elephant in the TARDIS. They both ignored the mammoth thing for a few minutes. The Doctor plugged in a few loose wires. Rose twirled a strand of her hair. And then, said, “Someone’s taking care of her, right? Susan? She isn’t…she wasn’t…alone?”

The Doctor stared at her for a moment before saying, “I don’t know.” After carefully gathering up the rest of his tools, he rolled out from under the rotor housing, and stood. “Honestly, I don’t. My memory is full of holes. Has been ever since the war. But I…I never knew much about Susan. Only how she came to me…the TARDIS malfunctioned. She came back in time and, somehow, knew me. She called me, ‘grandfather.’ I looked for information about her, of course. There were records, the names of her parents, but no specifics.”

“She came in the TARDIS?”

“Yes, didn’t I tell you? I’d been a Senator and a teacher but not a Time Lord. I’d never been able to bond with a ship, hear one in my head, and that’s absolutely vital for regeneration.” He waved a hand at the machinery around them. “It’s not all wires and tubing. There’s a deeper, metaphysical bond. She, sort of, reminds me who I am. But I’d given up on having it. Until Susan brought the TARDIS to me.” He stroked a rounded column near his face, running his palm along the curving length.

“She’d been marked for disposal," he went on. "Turned back in twice over for repair and reconditioning, considered defective. Susan didn’t believe it. On the day she left, she told me there was nothing mechanically wrong with the TARDIS.” Lost in memory, he smiled into the middle distance. “She was very like you. Susan, I mean. Always fighting for the underdog. She was running a test of the TARDIS temporal guidance system when it blew a circuit and she ended up, literally, in my backyard.” He glanced at Rose and saw she wasn’t listening. “Rose?”

“How am I’m supposed to go on…forget her?”

“You’re not. Of course, you’re not supposed to forget. But we can’t go back there, Rose. You understand that, don’t you? If I try to see Susan, now, her history will change. She’ll die, like all the rest.” Rose gave a broken little nod. “We have to let her life unfold as it did.”

“Was she…adopted?”

“Generally, our children are raised collectively. But she was a happy child. Bright. Mechanically inclined. Very well adjusted when she came to me. She had a way with the TARDIS that bordered on miracle working.”

Rose drew a shuddering breath, lifting her chin as she said, “Took after you, then. I have trouble fixing the electric can opener.”

“She had your eyes,” the Doctor said, thinking, ‘…and nose and mouth’ and wondering how he’d never seen it. There was another very long lag in the conversation before he went on, “But you met her, didn’t you? On your library travels? I seem to remember prodding you with my stick.”

“You did, you grumpy old…codger.” Rose’s insincere chuckle died away. At last, she turned to look at him. “What else do you remember?” She asked with an ominous overtone. 

‘Right,’ the Doctor thought, ‘Here we go, then.’

“Nothing,” he admitted. “My Eighth incarnation brought you back to me. I was in exile for most of that life, no memory. And then, there was the war. I don’t think Susan was on the front lines. She might have worked with the ships. I don’t remember her at all from the fight.”

“And you don’t remember me? From back then?”

The Doctor had been cleaning his hands, but he stopped to frown over this. “From the war?” He asked as, for the first time, it dawned on him that she might have been elsewhere in time. Taking a step toward her, he asked, “Were you there for the war, Rose?”

“No,” she shook her head, seeing he’d misunderstood and therefore probably didn’t remember anything. “I meant…on Gallifrey. I was there with…him…you…the other Doctor. Do you know what happened…what I did?”

“I know, yes,” he said, walking toward her. “I just don’t remember it.”

Rose shifted on the step, nervously peering up at him as he closed the distance between them. She asked the question that was haunting her. “Did they die? Are they dead?” Her expression pleaded with him to deny it.

So he did. “No, they didn’t die, Rose. I don’t think you could kill anyone.”

”But you can’t be sure? Can you?” she cried, standing up and whipping around to go. The Doctor leaped forward from a standstill, grabbing her elbow. 

Already mounting the stairs, she stiffened at his touch, almost shrinking away from it. He let go immediately. “I’m sorry. I won’t…” he broke off, pained because he had to tell her, “You don’t have to worry that I’ll… I won’t go into your mind. Not if you don’t want me there. I would never….” She bobbed her head once, accepting his promise, but he could see her trembling. There was no trust in her body language. She looked ready to bolt. “Rose…?”

“What’s wrong with me?” she asked, spinning around to confront him. “How could I do those thing? Hurt those people with my...mind, my thoughts? Is it because we…because of…us?”

His mouth fell open as he dropped one step down. “Oh, no. No, Rose.” He shook his head emphatically. “It has nothing to do with…us, our bond. It’s the Vortex, the Time Vortex. It’s still in your head.”

“The Vortex? From the TARDIS?”

He swallowed, lowering his eyes after registering the confusion in her face. “But you don’t know. You don’t remember. And I…well…I…” 

He looked away, staring at the rotor base in the middle of the room. His hand worked the clenched muscles at the base of his skull as he tipped his head to the side. Knowing there was no way to avoid having this conversation, he still shrank from it. Squeezing his eyes closed, he searched for the words to explain what he should have explained long ago. 

“It’s inside you," he said, at last. "It’s been inside you for a very long time. But it’s not you.” He turned to meet her gaze squarely, repeating, “It’s not you, Rose, remember that.”

“But...how’d it get in my head?”

“You asked for it. Do you remember? You were trying to get back to Satellite Five, to rescue me. You looked into the heart of the TARDIS...and there was singing...and a light.”

She nodded absently, remembering some details from her brief exile to Earth. “I wanted to communicate with her, convince her to take me back to you before the Daleks could…” She suddenly went very still. Her eyes glazed over as all of her attention turned inward. 

“Only it’s not a heart,” he snorted derisively, angry at himself. “I was being poetic. It’s temporal energy, surging back and forth...a limitless, merciless power. And you opened your mind and your soul to it.”

“The Daleks,” Rose breathed the light of memory transforming her face. “I see every atom of your existence,” she intoned, “and I divide them.” Her gaze snapped back to pin the Doctor in place. “I killed them. All of them. Millions of Daleks…” She sounded like she could hardly comprehend it. “I turned them into piles of dust. Everywhere. All at once. Even the Emperor.”

“Even the Emperor,” he confirmed. “The false god. You poured all of time and space into his tiny little head.”

The burgeoning horror on her face intensified. “But I did it to people, too. Your people,” she said, hitting a slightly hysterical note. “And you. What about you, Doctor? You regenerated. Did I…? Was it me? Did I kill you on Satellite 5?”

He shifted, standing as close to her as he dared, as close as he could come without touching her. His hands skimmed along her bare arms and brushed over her hair without making true contact. “No, you didn’t. You would never…” He saw her fading. He was losing her to guilt and fear. She couldn’t hear him. “Rose, look at me,” he ordered and she did. “I killed myself.” Holding her eye, he placed a hand on his chest. “It was totally my own fault. As I told you, I tried to absorb the entire Vortex and nobody was meant to do that.” 

Rose gasped as if surfacing from a long dive. She held his gaze for a moment and then asked, “Why?” 

“It was hurting you, destroying you. I couldn’t let that happen…" Her pained expression told him he'd misunderstood her question. She wanted to know more about the Vortex but he went on with his explanation because there were things she needed to know, "...anymore than you could leave me there to die. Do you understand what I’m saying?” She nodded. “So, I took the Vortex into my own body. I tried to pull it out by the root. Out of you and into me.” He exhaled, shifting away from her slightly but keeping eye contact. “Only I missed a bit. There’s a door, a way into your mind.”

“It’s open,” Rose said. “Right, now…it’s not locked.”

“I know,” he said. 

“Can you make it go away?”

He shook his head, a quick denial so she wouldn’t hold onto the hope. “I can’t. I’m sorry. Even if I let it take this life, I don’t think I could make it leave you. It’s a part of you now. You can close the door, just like you opened it. I can help you seal it, again, but you would need to let me into your mind.” Before she could protest beyond a pre-verbal squeak, he quickly reassured her. “And you can’t. I know. It’s too soon for that. The good news is: I don’t think you are going to hurt anyone. It’s not burning in you. It’s just…vigilant.” 

“So…what do we do?”

“We wait. For you to heal, get stronger. For the fire to bank in your mind. For the power to grow complacent.” 

“You’re talking like it knows things. Like it’s alive.”

“It knows everything. And it’s more than alive…it’s life. And death. And all the little moments in between. But it’s not a being. It has no agenda beyond the one you give it.”

“I’m in control?”

“Yes, you’re in control. Of everything.” He forced himself to go on, speaking in a rush to avoid coloring his words with too much emotion. “Of this, too, of us…what we have, where we go, what we do. We can go back to how it was before, if you like…be friends, travel…take care of one another.” Bobbing his chin at her, he sucked in air and almost groaned as said, “We don’t have to…”

“Touch?” Rose finished, sorrow clogging her throat. 

“Not ever…if you don’t want to.”

“What if I do?” she asked, voice breaking on a sob that became a gasp, “No,” she wrenched her head aside, back-pedaling when he instinctively put out a comforting hand. His fingertips grazed her cheek. The back of his hand registered a ghostly touch, a few of her stray hairs caressing him as he let his arm swing down to his side. “No, not, now, not yet,” she panted, fear making her throat clench around the warning. “I just…what if…someday…I do want to?”

“I’m right here,” he said, with all the tenderness he could summon. “Honestly, I’m right here.”

“No matter how long it takes?” she asked, wanting--needing a promise.

He gave one without any hesitation, letting it shine through his eyes. “No matter how long it takes.”

 

END THIS PART


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Rose recovers from her ordeal with the Time Lords, the Doctor is stranded on Earth. He tries to make himself at home in the domestic life. And, of course, everyone loves a little more Jackie.

As the hot water cooled, Rose gave her hair a final rinse. Eyes closed, she blindly patted for the shower knobs, found them and twisted until the pipes shrieked and the water stopped flowing. The screech of the pipes, familiar since her childhood, made her smile. With the rush of water now a sedate drip, she yanked the dolphin-motif curtain aside, rattling its leaping-dolphin hooks. Still in self-imposed darkness, she took an exaggerated step over the tub rim onto the mat. A towel eluded her out-of-practice search for a moment but she finally oriented herself to seize one.

After wiping her face, she opened her eyes. The claustrophobic dimensions of the small, steamy room struck her at once. She ignored them as she turban-wrapped her sopping hair and reached for another towel. Bracing one foot on the closed toilet lid, she set her back against a clammy wall and briskly scrubbed herself dry. One moment she was fine and the next, the dripping walls seemed to wrap around her, clinging to her skin even as the clouded mirror denied her very existence. She gasped and straightened. The sopping towel turban crushed her, stole her breath. She cast it off and repeatedly combed her fingers through hair, pulling the wet mass from her nape. Her sense of being shrink-wrapped in plastic didn’t abate. 

Clutching her remaining towel to her breast, Rose retreated into the tub to crack the room’s only window a bit and let out some steam. Nose to the draught of fresh air, she breathed deep. Gradually the choking grip on her throat eased. Sighing, she rested her head against her extended arm and stared out the tiny window into a parking lot. Dawn was just breaking but the whole world seemed small to her now. Home wasn’t comforting any more. It stifled.

She’d traveled so far, she supposed, grown accustomed to the TARDIS life. Unexplored horizons comforted her these days, even as they urged her to roam. Rose shook her head. She’d become a gypsy. No home but her interstellar van. Perhaps she could only feel at ease in the open. Or in a huge echoing bathrooms with waterfalls. Waterfalls but no mirrors. 

Rose cast a narrow-eyed glare over her shoulder. The baleful blankness of the moisture-silvered mirror drew her attention. There were few mirrors in the TARDIS, none in the bathrooms. Time Lords didn’t seem to have physical vanity. Or admit to it anyway. The only mirrors the Doctor possessed were two standing ones in the wardrobe and one associated with the workings of the console. Mirrors had never struck Rose as ominous before. But, since waking up from her coma, she'd feared them. Feared what she would see in her own reflection. 'There is something of the wolf in you,' a Victorian monster had once told her. Now, it was easy to imagine it. Had some vile entity hollowed out a lair inside her? Rose thought she could sense the sun-bright thing pacing back and forth in her head. She was afraid to meet its eye in the mirror. 

But outlining the shape of her fear gave Rose courage. She huffed, impatient with her cowardice, and turned abruptly to face the milky mirror, again. This was ridiculous. No wolves lurked in her head. She hadn’t changed. She was still Rose Marion Tyler, daughter of Jackie and Pete...the Doctor’s human, quite human, thank you, companion. She stepped out of the tub and stalked toward the sink, intending to face down her fears and put on a little make-up. Fix your face and you fix your whole outlook on life, as her mum put it. Jackie Tyler was a firm believer in the mystical power of cosmetic enhancement. Not having enough fun? Go blonde!

Approaching the mirror, Rose could see the dim reflection of the room in its pearled surface, muted colors and shadows. No monsters. Using the side of her hand, she smeared a clear area in the misted glass. The scariest things in the mirror were her under-eye circles. They were frightful. She couldn’t go out looking like this, couldn’t face her mum’s barely veiled suspicions. She needed to have her mask in place, a front of mascara and rouge. Unzipping her cosmetic bag, Rose chose a confidently crimson shade of lipstick and located both blush and foundation. Taking a deep breath, she dabbed a few smudges of color under her eyes to conceal the rings, blending it in. Then taking up the mascara wand she leaned forward for her first deep look into the dreaded mirror. There was a thump at the door. 

Rose twitched convulsively, poking a few bristles into her eye. Tearing up, she tore away a handful of tissue to swab her face as she gasped, “I…wha…” Turning her back on the mirror, she let her frustration power a shout, “What is it?”

“Are you going to be all day?” Jackie Tyler whined from the hallway. There was no other word for it. She whined, like a crated puppy. Rose gritted her teeth. “Rose? You have to talk to me sometime, sweetheart.” Jackie’s tone hardened as she rapped again, “All right. Stay quiet, then, but open up. I’m dying for a pee.”

Rose drew a hissing breath through her clenched teeth. Her mother, solicitous at first, had grown increasingly demanding. She wanted answers. Answers Rose wasn’t prepared to give. Apparently, the Doctor had been very upset when he’d brought her home. And his circuitous explanations had left her mother in a highly agitated state. Rose wanted to soothe her but she didn’t yet have the patience.

“Almost done,” she called. Eye clearing, she could see well enough to exchange her towel toga for her bathrobe. “Just a minute more.”

Cinching the robe closed, she went to the sink again. This time she applied her make-up quickly without checking her reflection. Her mother wouldn’t care if the line of blush was stark on her cheek or the mascara a tad too heavy on her lashes. And the Doctor wouldn’t notice. He only saw the true her, underneath every artifice. Though he’d occasionally called her beautiful, she’d once compared his inability to see ‘sexy’ to color-blindness. ‘You’re hopeless,’ she’d told him, giving up on enticing dresses and impractical shoes. It didn’t matter to him if she was covered in war paint or festooned with muddy grime from a foul street. He would beam at her like she rivaled Keira Knightley gowned in couture. He always saw straight into her soul. She hoped her soul looked the same to him, now, but she doubted it did. Some changes branded you deep. 

Opening the mirrored cupboard, she reached for a tampon, tore it free of the wrapper, and inserted it without stopping to debate herself again about the wisdom of consulting a gynecologist. She was hardly bleeding now and what would she say? My alien boyfriend’s people used temporal transportation to remove a baby from my belly…is that dangerous? Or how about…So, what do you know about the effects of time travel on pregnancy? Sensible old Dr. Patel would have her fitted for a straitjacket. Besides, Rose was pretty sure it was normal to bleed after losing a baby. She hadn’t exactly miscarried but the principle was probably the same. Rose needed maternal advice but her mum had trouble setting the VCR timer. Jackie needed constant reassurance and emotional support just to deal with the Doctor. The truth was, she'd never been much good in a crisis, unless the crisis demanded tea or Lasting Color #17.

“About time,” Jackie greeted Rose when she opened the bathroom door. “You’ve used all the hot water, I imagine. You and him. You’re a pair, all right.”

“Where is he?” Rose asked, peering around her mother and down the hall with the expectation of seeing the Doctor. 

He wasn’t lurking. She retied her robe belt, making it tighter, mentally calculating her chances of gaining the bedroom ahead of him and locking the door. 

“He’s gone to the market.”

“What? Without me?” 

Rose frowned over her own mixed emotions. She was surprised by the hurt tone in her voice and the sharp stab of regret in her chest. Regret didn’t make much sense. She’d been avoiding the Doctor for days and she hated shopping. Small wonder he’d given up on her and gone off on his own. She’d dropped enough hints about needing breathing space and cast enough barbed glares to puncture even his over inflated ego.

”You’ve been forever in there. And you know what he’s like just now. He woke me up at 5:30 this morning, singing. ‘Operetta,’ he called it. ‘Drowning cats,’ is more like. He’s been in the Pepsi already. Two cans, at the very least. And he didn’t touch a morsel of breakfast.” Rose groaned. “Don’t groan at me. I’m not his keeper, but if you ask me he needs one.”

“Sugar keeps his spirits up. He’s worried. And he hates staying in one place.”

“One place? More like twenty. He was bouncing off the walls when he found you’d got by him and into the shower.” Jackie edged around Rose, shooing her out into the hallway. 

“I’ve never really seen him this…fizzy.”

“Well, I should hope not if he’s driving. Seeing him this morning, I thought, it’s no wonder you go missing for years and end up on the wrong planet half the time,” Jackie said, starting to close the door in her daughter’s face. “I’ve got to use the loo. I’m bursting. You go make us the tea and toast.”

“Yeah, all right,” Rose said. After a brief, hesitation, she put a hand against the closing door and timidly said, “Mum?”

“What sweetheart?” Jackie inquired gently even as she bobbed a little against the demands of her bladder. 

There was too much to say. Rose smiled sadly. “Nothing. I’ll see you in a minute, yeah?”

In the kitchen, she filled the kettle and put it on the heat. Then, she added four tea bags to the yellow and blue teapot, three for the people and one for the pot. Both her mum and the Doctor liked their tea strong and sweet. Checking the fridge, Rose saw they were nearly out of milk and completely out of jam. Luckily, the Doctor had left them some butter. She waited on the toast until the kettle whistled. Her mum walked in just as Rose was pouring the water over the tea.

“Did you warm the pot?”

Rose rolled her eyes. “The water’s boiling. It’s warm enough.”

“But the tea will cool too quickly, sweetheart,” Jackie said, her voice hitting that grating register the Doctor always grimaced over. 

Though she loved her mother dearly, more and more Rose found herself grimacing, too. She was used to being mistress of her own house, well – TARDIS, and it irritated her to be corrected like a child. “We’ll drink it fast, then.”

“While it’s brewing,” Jackie said, pointedly, “It will cool down before it’s ready to drink.” Bumping Rose aside with her hip, she dumped the barely colored hot water from the teapot, added another tea bag, refilled the kettle and put it back on the burner. “There now, be ready in a minute.”

“Fine, whatever,” Rose said, sulkily. She gestured toward the door. “I’m going to go dress.”

“Don’t you want your tea?”

She almost said no. She hadn’t wanted tea in the first place but the beseeching look on her mother’s face checked her. “I’ll be right back,” she assured, taking a moment to pat her mum’s arm before she left. Jackie smiled and went in search of something in the fridge. Rose shuffled into the living room, heading for the hall. 

She'd just reached her bedroom when she heard her mum shrilly exclaim, “He’s only eaten the last of the jam. Rose? He’s eaten the jam.”

Rose felt the muscles in her jaw cramp. They had to get out of here. Being torn down the middle like this was driving her mad. She felt trapped between her mother’s domestic inanity and the Doctor’s happy insanity. As she sank down on the edge of her bed, Rose wondered if the Doctor thought he was fooling anybody. He wasn’t. Both she and her mother knew his recent perpetual good humor arrived via self-medicating. His body didn’t process refined sugars as much as ferment them. A handful of jelly babies left him pleasantly relaxed. Four cans of Pepsi a day, plus jam and pudding, left him buoyant even in the face of tragedy. He was currently bio-chemically incapable of brooding. 

To his credit, he’d neither pressed her for attention nor touched her in the last week. He only joked and talked and twitched and bounced about until she’d started locking the doors against him. It hurt him, which hurt her but she didn’t want to pretend things were normal when they weren’t. She, also, didn’t want to acknowledge her part in encouraging his abuse of uncontrolled substances. 

Maybe they should go. 

‘Maybe he should go,’ a tiny, self-pitying, inner voice told her. ‘Maybe he’d be happier on his own.’ 

Only, he hadn’t been happy before they’d met. Rose knew that. And besides…she needed him. Far more than he realized. Far more than she could ever say. She wanted to tell him, but the words always stalled in her throat. She was far better at physical expressions of affection. She wanted to slide back into his arms. Feel him naked against her. Hold him. Kiss him. Let him enter her mind. He would feel loved then. He would know. But even the thought of such intimacy sent fearful shivers prickling up her spine. Her skin crawled. 

God, would she never get over these stomach-curdling flashbacks?

Even as she had the thought, a full-blown one hit. Ghostly hands seemed to close on her. Invisible cords cut across her chest, tightened, squeezed. Her body told her to run but refused to obey her. She shot to her feet but could go no further. Adrenaline spiked her heart rate and evaporated her saliva. Her mouth went popcorn dry. Her breath rasped in her throat. In her mind’s eye, she could see the High Inquisitor’s kindly but determined face grow wary and then twist in agony. Rose closed her eyes and covered her ears. She took a few blind, stumbling steps toward the door. 

She could still see them all, the people she’d burned. She could still hear them screaming in her head. She screamed, too. The Doctor was right. She hadn’t killed them. She’d made them beg for death. Dimly, she was aware of noises outside her head, her mother’s pleas, the insistent keening of the kettle and then the crash of the front door as the Doctor kicked it open.

He was here. 

Rose threw herself at him as he came through her door and he caught her, held on tight. His fingers skidded on the fleecy weave of her robe. Her hands clawed up his back, pulling him closer. She burrowed into him, into his mind, shocking him, bruising him psychically as she searched for a safe place to hide. He offered no resistance, unfolding thoughts and memories before her wild rush, giving in completely and generously to her need. She dove deep into his yielding dark, lost herself and then had to check the urge to lash out in panic. Afraid of burning him, she tamped down the fire in her wolfish soul. She would die before allowing it to strike at him. In their joined mind, she floated, waiting for him to find her, certain he would. 

The storm came, sweeping over her with a jet-engine roar, swift as the sea swamping Pharaoh’s chariots. Stinging salt spray hit Rose’s face and pricked against her closed eyelids. Ducking her head, she held fast against the momentary maelstrom. It calmed in an instant, stilled and settled on her as a misting rain. Opening her eyes, Rose squinted into sunshine. The sky was a blue so pale it was almost white. The clearing rain and unnatural brightness birthed a multitude of rainbows on the horizon. 

Rose didn’t recognize anything but she knew where she was. The Doctor had created an imaginary world around them, a haven with no triggers for her damaged spirit to exploit. They stood on the deck of a tiny sailing ship in the middle of a vast ocean. There was no land in sight, no claustrophobic walls or tight corners, no place for shadows to lurk. The entire world was apparent, bright and sunny. 

Despite a slight breeze, which quickly dried her clothes, the seas seemed becalmed. Their little sailing vessel bobbed gently as she and the Doctor held one another. Rose relaxed. Sighing contentedly, she rested her cheek against his shoulder. He stroked her hair as he leaned back against the mast. Neither of them spoke, they simply breathed away her fear and his loneliness. After what seemed like a good half hour, Rose recalled herself enough to feel concern for him. Lifting her head, she tipped it back so she could search his face for some sign of pain or distress. He smiled sweetly at her and as soon as she grinned back they returned to reality.

No more than a few second had elapsed. Her mother and the whistling kettle were still shrilly demanding attention. The Doctor still held her. Cautiously, she loosened her death grip on his shoulder blades and took an unsteady step back. He let go easily, smiling down on her with his usual good humor as his hands skimmed her forearms. His unruffled manner reassured her. They would weather this bad patch. From the corner of her eye, Rose saw his hand rise into view. He moved carefully, as if he meant to lightly trace along her cheek but he checked himself before he touched her. His fingertips didn’t quite make contact with her skin. They hovered. 

There was a sick churning in Rose’s stomach and her lower lip trembled but she stood still, letting him approach. She trusted him this much. Wanted to trust him completely. She could sense his mental presence in the room, a sort of blanketing influence. But he made no further contact with her mind. And once he’d hovered over her cheek and around her chin and skimmed his thumb above her mouth, he tucked his hands into his trouser pockets and became as closed to her as any human male. Rose felt an overwhelming sense of hope. Pressing to her tiptoes, one hand against his chest for balance, she gave him the quickest of kisses.

He held her gaze afterward, just for a moment, and then turned to face Jackie, speaking in his usual carefree way. “I’m afraid I’ve dropped the shopping down the stairwell,” he admitted, his expression benignly polite. They might have been having a pleasant stroll in fine weather for all the tension in him. He did grimace in slight apology as he added, “Might salvage something, but not the jam. There was a definite shattering on impact. So, it’s back to the market for me. Good thing I’m paying, hey?” A small nudge of his elbow to Jackie’s arm accompanied this last question.

Jackie shoved around him. She wasn’t a cruel woman but she was frightened and wouldn’t be easily deterred from hounding her daughter for answers. “Rose? What’s happened? Talk to me? Are you ill? Are you dizzy? Did something startle you, sweetheart?”

Falling back, Rose pressed the heel of her palm to the side of her head. She twisted her body, avoiding her mother’s grasping hands. She didn’t want to be touched, held. Confined. But she was quickly cornered between the bed and a small table. Shoulders hunched, she drew an unsteady breath. As Jackie closed on her, harrying her with questions, Rose cast a sidelong appeal at the Doctor. 

‘Help me,’ her expression pleaded even as she tried to answer her mother. “I had a flashback, that's all,” she said. “But it’s over, now. I’m all right.”

“But a flashback of what?” Jackie cried. She hurled an irritated and accusing glare at the Doctor, who had begun to emit soothing mutters. He seemed to be shushing her, urging her away from Rose. “What happened out there? What are the pair of you hiding?” She demanded of him. When he didn’t answer, she moved in on Rose, again, arms extended to envelop her in a hug. 

The Doctor gave up on gentle persuasion. Leaping forward from a standstill, he seized Jackie just above the elbow and pivoted her like a swinging gate on the hinge of her arm. “Leave it,” he hissed, locking his gaze on hers as she came around to face him. 

There was nothing benign or polite in his expression. It was chilling. His slit-eyes flashed with venom. The set of his jaw coupled with his clenched teeth and snarling lips gave his face a psychotic cast. Jackie had never considered him harmless but this sudden shift into viciousness alarmed her. She’d harried him with impunity for so long that his lashing out struck her harder than being snapped at by a loyal mutt.

“I…just…” she sputtered, shaken more by what she considered confirmation of his menace than by any other event of the morning. 

Sensing her mother’s distress, Rose called the Doctor off by simply stepping forward and gripping his arm. The effect on him was immediate. While he didn’t exactly morph into old Shep, faithful companion, his bristle vanished. He pulled into himself, reining in his temper as his gaze lifted to intersect hers. 

“I’m...completely fine, now,” she told him, “really.” Her mother squeaked and Rose reassuringly caressed her back with her other hand, linking them into a unit of three. “No worries,” she insisted, smiling when Jackie shifted closer to her. “But the Doctor’s right, mum. I could use a bit of quiet. My head is killing me.”

“You have a headache, sweetheart?” Jackie said, solicitously. Rose braced herself to take the stroking pet of her mother’s hand. “You should have mentioned. What you need is a lie down. I could get you some aspirin. Or a nice icepack for your neck. Would you like that? A little ice?”

“Just some tea, thanks,” Rose said. She nodded toward the door. “You go on. We’ll be in in a minute.”

Jackie hesitated, clearly torn about leaving. Rose smiled reassuringly, not wanting her mother to feel unwelcome but silently urging her to go. Jackie obviously didn’t want to go without answers to her many questions. But her love for Rose won out over selfish curiosity, she sighed, “If you’re certain you’re all right.” Rose nodded briskly and, after a telling hesitation, gave her mother a quick hug. Jackie started for the hallway but stopped short at the open door, turning back to say, “If you ever want to talk about it…?”

“I’ll let you know,” Rose said, softly. 

“I mean…at a time like this, you would think a girl would turn to her mother…” 

Her suggestion trailed away into awkward silence. Rose and the Doctor stood side-by-side, regarding her with a good measure of detachment. Their postures were identical and their smiles had become fixed disguises, masking any real feelings. Fidgeting in the face of this disturbingly alien indifference, Jackie finally said, “Maybe a boiled egg with your tea and toast? Your headache could be low blood sugar. Sadie Carmichael, next floor up and three over, has attacks of low blood sugar. You won’t know her. She’s new since you went traveling. But I gave her son a steer toward Mickey’s old job at the garage and he got it. He stops by every evening and checks on his mum, says the sugar sets her off into fainting fits from time to time but all she needs is a little protein to be right as rain. Would you like me to boil you an egg?”

“That’d be…great,” Rose said, cheerfully enough.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jackie hesitated a moment longer before turning to go. She didn’t want to leave and, as she made her slow way to the kitchen, couldn’t help brooding on Rose’s inhumanly cool smile. She’d changed so much in the past two years. The airs that fancy shop had given her were nothing compared to the cocky attitude she’d picked up from the Doctor. The stories they told gave Jackie nightmares. The two of them laughed in the face of danger, spit in its face more like. But bad things still happened. And it was all right for him, he’d go on living if he died. But what about Rose? 

Would he have the courage, or the common human decency, to tell her if Rose died out there on Mars or wherever? Or would the two of them simply vanish from her world, like Mickey did, leaving her forever wondering? It was months between visits now. How long would it be before they stopped coming back? Or worse before there was nothing left of the sweet girl Rose had once been? How long before some strange, alien woman took Rose Tyler’s place? Jackie felt like an anchor, stubbornly digging in to keep her child from drifting away. It was wearing.

Shaking her head in frustrations, she used a dishcloth to protect her hand as she removed the steaming kettle from the burner. There was almost no water left inside. After heaving a put upon sigh, she ran another five cups from the sink and started the kettle boiling one more time. Only the Doctor could make breakfast tea so much bother. She located an egg for Rose and decided she’d have one as well. Filling a small pan, she set their eggs to cook and then settled herself at the kitchen table to wait. She meant to give him a piece of her mind this time. She wasn’t about to sit quietly when her daughter had been reduced to screaming and shaking by whatever had happened to her. 

Violation, he’d said. And she’d though ‘rape.’ 

But it couldn’t be that simple. Not with him involved. At least, Rose wasn’t pregnant. She’d entered her monthlies and that was a blessing. But she wouldn’t talk, wouldn’t answer the simplest of questions. Jackie had noticed her avoiding the Doctor, too. Perhaps now was the time to strike against him, to cut him out of Rose’s life forever. If she could only get Rose to see how dangerous he was--how alien.

As she stood to remove the eggs from the pan, Jackie heard Rose and the Doctor in the hallway, chattering like a caged finches. They sounded happy. They always did. Rose wasn’t afraid of him, that much was certain. And he seemed to dote on her. Bracing herself for the argument ahead, Jackie nested the eggs into cups, and then poured the left-over hot water into the sink. She was carrying the pan back to the stovetop when it struck her the voices were moving away. The front door opened. They were leaving. Dropping the empty pan, Jackie rushed to stop them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The tension in Rose’s room eased by half once Jackie left, but the Doctor waited until she’d silenced the shrieking kettle before releasing his pent breath. Then, facing Rose, he placed his hands lightly on her robed shoulders. She had to steel herself, more than he liked, her breath catching slightly, but she didn’t flinch or twitch away. He catalogued that away as a hopeful sign.

Flexing his knees to meet her eye squarely, he asked, “Now, how are you really?”

With a gasping chuckle, Rose sagged to the edge of the bed, relief at his ready understanding evident on her face. “Shaky,” she confirmed. The confession reeled him closer. He dropped into a crouch before her, coat tails flaring on the floor. Looking up like one seeking divine guidance, he searched her face as she stared into the middle distance and added, “And you were right. I didn’t kill them.”

“I know,” he said with tender certainty. “You aren’t capable of murder. It goes against your nature. And you need to know this,” she glanced at him as he paused, “My people are very resilient. They can recover from anything, given enough time and rest.”

“I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to hurt them. They just...kept coming.”

“I know.” He looked down, mumbling. “It’s my fault.”

Rose’s mouth fell open in surprise. “But you didn’t…” she began, before switching gears mid-sentence to firmly deny him. “No! It was my fault. I wanted to learn your language. I didn’t pay attention to K-9. I wandered off on my own.” The Doctor kept his head bowed and she read him as clearly as she might read a neon sign on a dark night. “And you didn’t have to talk me into anything else either. I wanted…”

With his gaze still focused on the carpet between her bare feet, his mouth lifted slightly at the corners. “To have your way with me?” he finished in a murmur.

“Oh, you wish,” Rose chuckled, tugging at his hair so he would lift his head and look at her. When he did she winked at him with a bit of her former sauciness. They stared into one another, finding peace. 

“I should have a look at those groceries,” he said, at last, but he made no move to leave. “Maybe the juice survived and the butter...plastic containers on both…”

Rose slid her fingers free of his tousled hair. “Did you go to Tesco?” she asked, her light tone reflecting her hope of returning the conversation to less personal ground. 

The Doctor nodded, but more in agreement with her unspoken desire for an emotional break than in answer to her question. Lips in a little moue, as if he were sucking on hard candy, he rose out of his crouch. As he stood, he combed a hand through his ruffled hair, smoothing it to his nape.

“They don’t open until eight-thirty,” he said, gripping the back of his neck. ‘I didn’t want to wait. So, I walked down to Elephant and Castle, found an express store.” 

Also nodding, Rose stood. Dog-legging around him, like the black knight evading a pawn, she said, “It’s all that sugar. Makes you restless.”

He didn’t answer, only tracked her with his eyes while she rummaged about for something to wear. He had been restless, wound tight. The long walk had helped. But the relentless clamoring of this morning’s sugar high seemed like a muted chorus when compared to the current singing in his blood. He watched Rose haul jeans and underwear from her dresser. She stacked various pieces of clothing like pancakes, one on top of another, before transferring the lot to her bed.

After settling the stack so it wouldn’t tip, and without a trace of embarrassment, she cast her robe off and stood nude before him. He forgot to breathe. There was a sudden burning in his chest at this show of trust and his mind conjured up a brief but wickedly sharp memory from his previous life. It was a memory of Rose, sun drenched and confident, on the planet Barcelona. He’d met her there, only a few weeks after he’d left the asylum. He’d been desperate…alone…empty, seeking union but so afraid of it. And she’d been…well…Rose. 

They came together as strangers in a bar and then later in a humid hotel room, bodies intertwined. He remembered her skin, soaked with sweat and silky smooth under his roaming hands. Her mind had remained closed to him, guarded, but her mouth had opened willingly to his tongue. She’d tasted as sweet, been as intoxicating, as honeyed mead. Bella, he’d called her, meaning only ‘beautiful’…though somewhere in his subconscious he must have known, sensed the vital role she would play in his life. Nothing, no one, had ever stirred him to such passion.

It was still to come for her, those memories, that day. For him it was sacred history. At her insistence, he’d left her behind on Barcelona only to come to Earth in the early twenty-first century, determined to see her again. He’d found her at five and then, again, a few years later. He’d stalked her in a way, arranging the delivery of a red bicycle one Christmas, scaring a wayward and abusive male from her door two summers later. He’d rescued her from shadows and store window dummies. One day on Barcelona, one brief encounter, had led him here.

He tucked his chin in and cocked his head to the side, watching Rose, remembering the journey as she chose a tank top from her closet and shimmied gracefully into it. He imagined sliding his fingers under the fabric, lifting it away from her skin. He wanted to delight her, make her gasp and moan. For a moment, she stood still, backlit by the window, all tan skin and white cotton--knickers and bra strap, socks and tank. He knew she would be surprised, if he gave his thoughts voice. She'd be surprised to learn he’d been gripped by something akin to lust. 

It wasn’t the lust of a man, of course. He didn’t have the throbbing in his loins he’d read so much about in the novels on Jackie’s scant bookshelf. But he did have a hunger. A pang, Rassilon would surely say, came from encouraging arousal. He wanted. He yearned. Though he didn’t dare speak of it, not yet, he longed to be with Rose…enter her, even subjugate her…make her his, but gently…oh, so gently. His desire couldn’t be sated in the physical realm. Though he recognized Rose’s physical beauty, it did not captivate him. Until they touched, her naked flesh meant no more to him than her cast off robe. What haunted him, moved him, was her recent push into his mind. It was only a question of time now before they could be together, again, before they were complete.

“Was it really named for Catherine of Aragon, Infanta de Castile?” Rose asked, certain he would know.

He did but it took him a dazed moment to recall what they’d been talking about and process her question. “What? Oh…Elephant and Castle. Yes!” He blinked, looking lost, and then said, “I mean, no. Not even close. There was a real elephant. Trunk, tusks…big ears,” he continued breathlessly, acting out by sketching elephant parts in the air as he named them, “hide like…well…like an elephant, I suppose.” He grinned broadly. “What else has a hide like that?” He sucked in a long overdue breath, “On Earth? Mind you…Sontorans…if we were in the Peju Nebula or...another time, the Kraken…extinct, now, so…” Rose beamed adoringly at him. He knew she enjoyed his rambling. It was one of her best qualities as a companion. Too many people tired of him after a few days, some tired of him within minutes. 

“My point was…is…” he went on, “the elephant was real enough. It once roamed or …that is…stood around, really, anchored by a great log and iron chains...down one of those crossroads. It was brought here by sailing ship. A tiny, seasick, mewling thing but it grew…,” he swallowed against his speeding tongue, slowing it, “into a sort of mascot for the Royal African Company.” The lift of his brows widened his eyes in pained resignation as he said, “Slave traders.” Rose scowled, obviously empathizing, as he did, with the enslaved. Freeing the oppressed was one of her pet projects in space/time. She frequently got him into trouble with it. “The local merchants provided stores and shackles and…oars to the Company. Profitable, of course. But the locals used to say they were caught between the Elephant and the Castle, meaning you might not like slavers but you had to pay your taxes somehow.”

“Like a rock and a hard place,” Rose suggested. The tip of her tongue appeared at the corner of her mouth as she drew the zip up on her jeans.

“Or the devil and the deep blue sea,” the Doctor agreed. “Or tea with your mother and a visit to a barber for dental work.” He grinned to soften the insult. “Eventually,” he drawled, carrying on with his story, “the elephant died and was reincarnated as ivory knife handles and piano keys. But the idea of the elephant lives on so it’s had a bit of immortality, as well, more than the average pachyderm, at any rate. The slave trade fell out of favor. Local pub owners erected eye-sores. The world turned, moved on.”

“And Tesco Express moved in,” Rose finished.

The Doctor nodded but absently as if he too had moved on. He scratched his head, grimacing as he looked toward the door. “I suppose we can’t get out of tea.”

“Tea won’t hurt you.”

Fixing her with a glare, head waggling so much it seemed unhinged, he said, “You forget I’ve had your mother’s tea. The best I can say for it is it brought me out of a coma.”

“We’ll bottle it. You can do the television spots.”

“We’d be sued. I suspect cultist witch doctors employ your mother’s tea to raise the dead. And I’m afraid she might use it to overcome my resistance to questioning.”

“You aren’t going to be interrogated,” Rose said, shrugging into her jeans jacket. She skimmed a few pound notes, a bus pass and her keys off the bedside table and into a pocket. Outfitted, she straightened her shoulders and strode toward the hall door. The Doctor hung back. "Are you coming?"

“She'll ask…questions.”

Rose paused, turning back to give him a quizzical look. The expression on his tense features drew her back to his side. Lowering her voice, she asked, “What sort of questions?”

“Difficult, slippery ones,” he said. “My intentions.”

“Your what?” 

“Intentions. Mostly, do I have any. If I’m going to be leaving you any time soon? Why I bother to stay? What I’m getting out of this…” he pointed back and forth between his chest and hers with one finger, “…relationship. And that’s…that’s just her warm up…I fear she’s just getting started. She’s also, interested in your motivation. How you feel about me? What happened to put you into a coma? Why didn’t I stop it? When will you be coming home to stay?”

“Maybe I should talk to her,” Rose said without enthusiasm. “Set her right on a few things.”

“Maybe,” the Doctor said, stretching the word like warm taffy as he stared at her in wide-eyed supposition, “We should go on a picnic. Instead of to tea. In lieu of.”

“A picnic?” Rose repeated as if she might have misunderstood. She cocked a brow and glanced around him at the alarm clock. “At this time of morning? Aren’t picnics more an afternoon sort of thing?”

“A breakfast picnic,” the Doctor clarified. “Baguettes and bananas in Victoria Tower Gardens. We can see the Burghers of Calais. I’ll buy you a fancy coffee.”

“You suggesting we just leg it out the front door? Give my mum the slip?”

“Oh, Jackie won’t mind,” he insisted, waving a carefree hand as he headed into the hall. “She’s probably sick of our company by now. We’ll say we’re off to do the shopping, again. Make sure it sticks this time. Matter of fact, we can stop at the Borough Market coming and going, pick up whatever we need.”

Rose privately thought her mother would mind very much being ditched with a full pot of tea and no answers to her questions. But Rose wanted to run as much as the Doctor did and this was their chance. 

“The Borough Market is for toffs,” she told him as she caught up. “It’s not like it was back in 1880.”

“Well…I’m a sort of toff,” the Doctor said. “Or, at least, toff-ish. Lord of Time.” Rose smiled, loving the way he weighted the title in his mouth. He gave it resonance. “And I’m not so out of date as all that. 1880?” He scoffed and shot her a look that included a disappointed furrowing of his brow. “You go on as if I’d just dropped in from beyond the rim, first time on Earth, but I’ve seen the travelogues. I’ve been to the Borough Market since I met you. Bought a jellied eel last time we visited your mum.” He stooped to squint at the damage his kick had caused the frame and wood of the front door. “Need to fix this when we get back. Your mother claims I’ve gone through more than my share of doors.”

“Didn’t know there was a limit,” Rose said.

“Apparently it’s three.”

“You could have used the sonic screwdriver.”

He favored her with a needle-sharp glare. “No, I really couldn’t have,” he said and she remembered how he’d stormed in to save her.

Cheeks reddening under the burning intensity of his stare, Rose raised her voice, calling, “We’re going out, mum. Back in a little while.” 

There was a sharp yelp of protest from the kitchen, followed by the clang of a dropped sauce pan. Rose turned toward the noise but the Doctor seized her hand and, throwing open the door, pulled her with him into the warm sunshine. Infected with his sense of urgency, Rose forgot to resist and, feet tripping along, followed in his wake as he launched them toward the stairs. Jackie was hot on their heels. But the damaged door slowed her down. Her exclamations grew louder, chasing them as they pelted down the steps 

“Come back here, you,” she yelled after the Doctor, “…you…door smasher! What happened to …who’s going to pay for this? You’re going make this right! And Rose isn’t well. Honestly…of all the cowardly…”

The Doctor skidded to a halt on the ground floor, stepping aside to avoid being run down, he let Rose’s momentum carry her around in a swing dancer’s circle. She opened her mouth to question this sudden halt as she came back to him, but saw he’d paused only long enough to gather the grocery sacks full of shattered glass and sticky jam at the foot of the stairs. Releasing her hand for a moment, he examined the remains of his shopping disaster. Neighbors had already availed themselves of the undamaged merchandise. There was no sign of the canned goods, juice or butter. 

“We have given to the poor,” the Doctor said after peering into each sack. “I feel like Robin Hood,” he added, grinning at her as he deposited the torn plastic bags in a nearby waste bin. “Rose Marion Tyler.”

“Except we’re not rich,” Rose grumbled. Though she knew the unwritten scavenging rules, she was still disappointed in her fellow estate tenants for swooping in like buzzards on road kill. It had been less than a half hour since the Doctor dropped the shopping.

“I am…rather,” the Doctor said, almost apologetically as he took her hand again and set off for the street. 

“Really?” Frowning, Rose pursed her lips a bit. This was news to her but not the ‘stop the presses’ sort. She gave a careless shrug. “I suppose you must be, yeah? I never thought about it but you always have money.”

“Well…when I say, ‘rich’, I mean well off.” He tipped his head to the right as he reconsidered his phrasing a second time. “And when I say, ‘well off’…I mean …comfortable. You’ll want for nothing.” 

Rose shook her hand free of his grip but only so she could seize his arm and bounce along beside him. “So, why do I always end up buying your chips and coffee?”

“I thought they were gifts,” he said, in a melting tone, his smile broad enough to belong to a door-to-door salesman. “Tokens of affection.” 

She poked playfully in the general direction of his ribs but missed by several inches, only prodding his coat. “How does that work? If you don’t?” she asked, a few moments later. When he glowered in confusion, she laughingly clarified, “Work, I mean. If you don’t work how did you get rich? Is it a Time Lord thing? Do they send you off with bags of gold or something?”

“They didn’t send me off. I ran away. And no bags of gold. Investments,” The Doctor told her as they reached the bus stop. He twirled, coat flaring and settled on a bench to wait. His legs were braced wide, his arms open and resting along the bench back. “Over the years and across the stars, I’ve made a few wise investments with an eye to future financial solvency.”

Rose’s expression turned from playful to puzzled as she plopped down next to him. “Isn’t that cheating?” she asked. “Using the TARDIS for monetary gain? I mean, it’s sort of like insider trading.”

“The TARDIS?” the Doctor exclaimed, his lips twisting into a sneer. “Why would I need the TARDIS to understand the vagaries of a market economy and manipulate them to my own benefit?”

“Oh,” Rose said, cutting her eyes to the side to study him. “So, you’re just clever?”

“Just?” he declared, in such an affronted fashion she bent double and laughed out loud. The merry sound, balm to his spirit, drew an answering chuckle from the Doctor. 

When she’d settled down enough to continue, Rose scooted closer to him and said, “Well, all right...it’s a bit more than cleverness. It must take some study.”

“Not a great deal," he admitted. "But I do need to be careful. I wouldn’t want to red flag my holding companies by taking too many risky plunges. Someone might notice and start asking questions if I never chose an unprofitable stock. There’s a company you should know about, Foreman, Ltd. Your name is on the paperwork. You could draw funds on your thumbprint. Should we ever be separated...”

“Don’t say that,” Rose warned.

He settled his hand over hers, but repeated himself with some firmness, “Should we ever be separated, you could make your way back to Earth from a thousand different planets. Remember, you’re not without resources.”

“Foreman,” Rose said wistfully. “I’ll remember.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The bus arrived with a growl and puff of smoke, like some great red dragon. It rumbled, while the driver grew irritated and the Doctor fumbled in pockets, coming up with everything but coins. Finally, Rose gave him one of her bus pass rides and they both boarded. 

“Rich…yeah, that’s you, just not solvent,” she mocked as they climbed to the upper deck for the trip to the Borough Market. 

The midsummer morning glistened. Bright sunshine made even old, graffiti-covered buildings sparkle. As they traveled the Doctor acted the tour guide, telling her about assorted monsters and menaces he’d faced down in this or that street. There didn’t seem to be a single block of the city he hadn’t defended at one time or other. Not to be out done, Rose pointed out her personal landmarks. Her school. Shareen's place. Mickey’s Gran’s house. 

“And over there,” she said, indicating a small playground. “That’s where I had my first kiss.”

Sighting along her arm, the Doctor pressed so close his breath tickled her cheek as, in a teasingly seductive purr, he guessed, “On the swings?”

“On the merry-go-round,” she corrected. “I liked to get dizzy, hanging my head over the edge. Seeing the world go by upside down, enjoying the blurry colors. And when the spinning stopped, Tam Petersen was standing there. His mum was chatting with my mum and we just sort of stared at one another. Then, he kissed me.”

“Bold move.”

“Well,” Rose sniffed, trying to sound offhand. “He was older. Seven.” 

The Doctor shifted away but nodded with her in astute sympathy. “Man of the world. You go for that type.”

“I was only five and three quarters.”

“Now, there’s an age gap. I’m surprised your mother didn’t nip the budding romance in the...well..bud. What ever could the two of you have had in common?”

“A love of spinning,” Rose said, cuddling his arm. “Same thing I have in common with you.” 

They arrived at the Borough Market a few minutes later. It bustled on Saturday morning. All manner of people shopped its stalls and storefronts: caterers and housewives and students. Bus loads of tourists crowded in when the doors opened at 9:00 am. The stands full of colorful vegetables, fruit and fresh fish had brilliant canopies in primary red, yellow and blue. Chalkboard signs proclaimed prices in bold letters. Voices echoed from the high ceiling and mingled with the myriad sounds of commerce bouncing off the concrete floor. 

Pausing on the threshold of the Market's vaulted doorway, the Doctor declared, "The marketplace, soul of a society, boon to archeologists and sociologist alike. The key to understanding any species, any culture."

"The Borough Market is the soul of our society?"

"Could be."

"I think England is in trouble."

"Could be."

Rose laughed. "Still...better than a Tesco Metro soul," she supposed as she let go of his hand, allowing the current of shoppers to carry her away. “I’ll meet you out front by the café,” she called to him. “Half an hour.”

Making up his mind not to worry, the Doctor bobbed his chin at her and waved absently. It would do neither of them any good for him to start fussing. The life they led frequently separated them and Rose wouldn’t tolerate coddling, even assuming he knew how to coddle. He purchased two bananas, a basket of fresh strawberries and several tiny cheese-filled pastries before thinking of Rose again. Glancing around, he saw no sign of her. Telling himself she was fine, he strolled to their rendezvous point, took a seat at one of the café tables and ordered a coffee. It had only just arrived when Rose returned. 

“Are you drinking that here?” she asked. “It’s such a lovely day. I thought we might walk across the bridge rather than take the bus. You won’t want to balance coffee all the way.”

“Give this to the poor,” the Doctor told the mystified waitress, returning his cup to her hand as he stood. “Maid Marion has command of me.”

“Sorry,” Rose told the waitress. “We just…need to go.”

Arm in arm, they left behind one obviously perplexed woman holding the Doctor’s coffee and strolled across the bridge toward Victoria Tower Gardens. The walk was a bit long but lovely. Bright sunshine baked into their shoulders. The river breeze, crisp and cool, ruffled their hair. And the park, when they reached it, was relatively peaceful. Later in the day there would be more people about, treading the sidewalks or sitting on the benches along the Thames but, at this hour, only a few students lounged on spread blankets. A jogger or two jogged by, but mostly the Doctor and Rose had the place to themselves. They purchased coffee, a thicker more aromatic brew than the Doctor’s previous cup, from a street vendor. Then, they found a bench under a canopy of trees near Buxley’s Fountain and ate their breakfast. A student wearing a sweatshirt proclaiming allegiance to St. Thomas’s Medical School hurried past them 

After licking soft-cheese filling off of her fingers, Rose asked, “What medical school did you attend?”

“St. Barts.”

“I find it hard to picture,” she said, “You…sitting in class, listening to lectures.” She watched him peel a banana and then looked toward the fountain. “I was here once with a school tour. It’s funny what you remember.”

“And what you forget,” he agreed. After chewing and swallowing a few bites of his banana, he told her, “I don’t really remember attending lectures. But I must have. I have the knowledge…and I know where it came from, St. Barts, class of 1892.”

“Was this…Eight?”

He didn’t answer for a long time and then he said, “I can’t be sure. I’ve forgotten so much. Huge icebergs of my life have been calved into the void. The war, I suppose. And then...as you age...you forget." He sighed and fell silent for a time. "The smell of the Jaumelia trees,” he went on, a bit later, apparently shifting to another subject. Rose was used to him switching topics mid-chat. “Groves of them surrounded the city. The blooms have a delicate aroma, almost like rum-laced cheesecake. But in the summer when the bark toasts under the hot suns, the air gets spicy. You can smell the perfume for miles and miles.”

“I was there in the summer, then,” Rose said, following him around the conversational curve with practiced ease. She knew he was speaking, not of his university days, but of his home world. “The air smelled like nutmeg and lime and black pepper.”

“Yes, your hair still carried the scent of the Jaumelia when you came home to me.” He stretched his legs out, crossing his ankles as he leaned into the bench back. Hands in his trouser pockets, he looked the picture of relaxation. “And this park,” he said, “still reeks of the Thames but it is a far, far sweeter smell these days than when I was a student at St. Barts. That much I remember.”

She didn’t question him further. What he'd told her was enough. She didn’t need to ask if he missed his home or his memories. It was evident he did. She understood him like he understood her. They finished their food in silence. Toying with the last strawberry, Rose scooted to the edge of her seat and squinted toward the statue of the Burghers. Now, that the time was at hand, she wasn’t sure she wanted to go see the famous sculpture. The siege of Calais remained fresh in her mind. The endless nights of worry would stay with her for a long time, the Doctor on one side of the battle and her on the other. 

“You won’t recognize anyone,” the Doctor told her, reading the thoughts from her face as easily as he might uncover them with telepathy. “Rodin wasn’t there, of course. But it's more than that. He used stock heads for his figures. Two of the Burghers were cast from the same mould.” 

“When I saw you come out with them,” she said softly, remembered fear coating her throat, making her voice thick. “Knowing they were condemned to die...I..." She swallowed. "You were so thin.” 

“Dehydration and dysentery...they had no food and fresh water was a challenge, too. But you had the ear of the queen,” he finished, brightly, never one to dwell on past tragedy. “You saved us.”

“It wasn’t me,” Rose denied. “You were lucky. The queen was a kind woman, merciful, and King Edward listened to her.”

“He loved her,” the Doctor said. No further explanation was needed but, glancing at Rose from the corner of his eye, he added, “She followed him to war.”

Rose blushed and looked down at her strawberry. After an awkward and heated silence, she said, “Did you know they had fourteen children?”

“She followed him to war,” the Doctor repeated.

Sniggering, Rose bumped his shoulder with hers. She popped the strawberry into her mouth, corralling an escaping dribble of juice with her thumb, and chewed. The Doctor started packing their trash into one bag in preparation to leave. After he’d swept up every crumb and crumpled every scrap of waxed paper, he started to stand. Rose caught his arm, pulling him back to her. He offered no resistance, just plopped into his seat again. Lifting his chin high enough to expose his throat, he cast an inquiring glance her way.

“I have something for you,” she said, “A sort of present.” Releasing his arm, she reached into her jacket pocket and drew out a small, brown paper package. As she handed it to him, she added, “I think it’s about time.”

The Doctor took the oddly shaped gift and turned it about in his fingers, stroking it as if he might divine what it held. The hard ridges under the wrapping puzzled him. Intrigued, he quickly tore the paper and let the contents of the packet spill into his open palm. His left brow arched in surprise.

“It’s a key,” he exclaimed, pinching it up between two fingers and his thumb for a closer look.

Though he studied it thoroughly, it told him nothing more. It wasn't the Key to Time but it might be the key to anything else. A locker. A locket. A trapdoor. He glanced at Rose, hoping for enlightenment. She had her TARDIS key out. She swung it slowly back and forth from the chain wrapped around her middle finger, like a hypnotist with a pendulum. Back and forth. Back and forth. He watched it swing. 

“You gave me yours,” she said, “but I never gave you mine.” 

“Yours?” he muttered, drawing a blank on her meaning. His face reflected his confusion as he wondered if this was, perhaps, a symbolic gift: the key to her heart?

Rose snorted impatiently. “To the flat,” she clarified in a tone that told him he was being unnaturally dense. “It’s my key. To my home.”

It hit him broadside. Her key. The knowing cascaded over him in a festive flurry like a delivery of Dear Santa letters to the North Pole. He tried to speak. His mouth opened and closed but nothing but a soft squeak came out. Fighting for composure, he broke eye contact with Rose, turning his face away to stare into the middle distance. He studied the leaves on the trees through a happy haze of tears. He’d traveled with a lot of people in his time, given out at least a hundred keys. No one had ever reciprocated. No one had ever thought to offer him a standing invitation into their life as he’d invited them into his. Only Rose. Only Rose wanted to give him a home again.

“Thank you,” he finally managed to say, the deep current of his emotions making his voice quaver.

He didn’t look back at Rose as she took his hand in hers and gently squeezed, but he could hear the grin in her voice when she edged closer and casually whispered, “I reckon it will save you twenty quid a year on doors.” 

 

END THIS PART


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And we press on to The Impossible Planet. We have some longer encounters with the crew and learn that there were more people on the base than we saw in the episode. Rose explains to the Doctor how real people live and shows him that his genius will always be valued. That he could have a different sort of life, if he wanted to have one.

“But I need my ship,” the Doctor insisted, struggling to keep a note of rising panic from his voice and failing. “It’s all I’ve got, literally the only thing.” 

“Your machine is lost,” Zack said, sympathetic but resolute. “…that is the end of it.”

He went on a bit around and between those fateful words, but the Doctor didn’t hear anything else. Lost. She was lost, his beautiful TARDIS. They’d been separated before. Once, she’d been wrenched apart by Tractators and scattered across a planet. Another time, while he languished in an asylum, she’d started a new life, put down roots. But always he’d been able to sense her, if not at first, then soon after the initial shock wore off. This time there was nothing beyond him but dead space. And Rose. 

Rose, depending on him for her very survival, was even less suited to building a new life in this place than he was. She had no education to speak of, no family or friends, not even an identity. He’d promised to look after her, to show her the wonders of time and space, and always to bring her safely home. Now, every promise he’d made would be broken. They were stuck here on this mad world, this impossible planet in its unstable orbit. They might die here, crushed into nothingness. He could feel the black sun sucking on them like a hard candy, belittling them. He could sense time being squeezed into a meaningless filament just a few light years away. He was Lord of Irrelevance here.

The others departed; leaving he and Rose alone to adjust to vastly altered lives. “I’ve trapped you here,” he said, solemnly.

With her usual generosity of spirit, she sought to comfort him. “No, don’t worry about me,” she said. 

The ground shook. Metal grated on metal. They both looked up and trembled just a little at the thought of what waited beyond the closed observation doors above their heads. Not just death but obliteration. No regenerations. No second chances. The inescapable gravity of their own mortality weighed heavily on them. They weren’t gods. They weren’t legends. They were people. Insignificant placeholders in eternity, and eternity ended in a black hole. 

They had, in the past, even at the heart of some world-altering event, felt free to leave all trouble behind if they wished. The TARDIS gave them the power to flee to another time or place. Even while fighting the Daleks, they’d still had that freedom, still controlled their own destiny. The decision to face death or run had been theirs. 

Staring upward, Rose realized they no longer had the luxury of running away. She let her fear color her voice as she went on, “Okay, we’re on a planet that shouldn’t exist underneath a black hole with no way out.” A spark of gallows humor lit her face as she looked at him again and said, “Yeah, I’ve changed my mind, start worrying about me.”

He couldn’t match her wavering smile with one of his own. Worry had settled on his shoulders already, worry and the sure and certain knowledge that, without his ship, he had nothing to offer her. No home. No riches. No escape. No future. Sooner or later she’d realize it, but not just yet. He hooked an arm around her and hugged her to his chest. She hummed happily, comforted. As he wrapped himself around her, gripping the ball of her shoulder with one hand, she melted into him. He sensed her ebbing confidence return and drew on her strength as a newborn might blindly draw on its mother’s milk. If she believed in him, he could – he would go on.

As Rose shifted, molding her body more completely to his, something bit into him, a hard outline in his lapel pocket. Her key. The slight weight of this token reminded him of all he had in this life, beyond his ship. He had a home, a place he belonged. It was light years and long centuries away but still out there. Or maybe home was here, with Rose. The lifeless lump of metal seemed to warm and pulse as he thought of this, taking up the rhythm of her heartbeat. Lowering his chin, he allowed himself a whiff of her hair and a brief, almost accidental, brush of his lips along the curve of her jaw line before he set her away. Pushing her to arm’s length, he met her eye and got down to the business of keeping them alive. 

“I don’t fancy the laundry,” he said. “You suppose they might find some other use for me?”

“Maybe you could help translate that writing,” Rose suggested.

He grimaced, regretfully. “Didn’t look familiar.”

“But people…regular people…do that sort of thing all the time,” Rose said, threading her arm though the slight space between his sleeve and his body. “Translate the unfamiliar. People like Toby. They look for patterns, yeah? Similarities to other languages. Tha’ sort of thing. You’ve been around a bit more than most. Maybe something will click for you. Something you missed at first glance. Wouldn’t hurt to take another look.”

He almost told her he’d committed the runic symbols to memory and so had no need to study them again, but he reconsidered. Action was better than inaction. At least he would be doing something, keeping his mind occupied. It wouldn’t do to sit and brood about his losses or the tenuous predicament he’d landed Rose in. Why hadn’t he paid more attention to the TARDIS and her moods? Her recent indigestion had been prophetic. She must have sensed trouble brewing on this planet, felt it might be more than he could handle.

“Yes, all right,” he conceded to Rose. “I can take another look.” He patted his pockets until he located a pen, and then went in search of a pad or a notebook. “I used to keep a diary,” he said, as he opened the desk drawers and cupboards of complete strangers and rummaged through their stuff. “Handy when I wanted to take a few notes. Handier, still, when I needed to slip a plea for rescue through the bars of a prison cell...or...wile away a few hours perfecting the paper airplane. Don’t know why I gave up journaling. I suppose because they’ll be nobody coming after me to read my memoirs. Ah-ha,” he declared, riffling the pages of a small, leather-bound booklet. “Blank paper, awaiting inspiration. Perhaps…if I do a bit of anagram work…” Brandishing the notebook like a fundamentalist preacher waving a bible, he pointedly flapped its pages before tucking it into his jacket pocket. “Toby may have the letters turned about or even miscopied. Come to that, I wouldn’t mind a glance at his original artifacts.”

“There you go,” Rose said, happily, but then she sobered as a new worry hit. “I hope this doesn’t mean I have to take your spot in the laundry.” Delighted by her, the Doctor beamed and she grew teasingly indignant. “Oh, yes. It’s all right for you to smirk. You always end up with the tenured professorship while I go into domestic service on these little jaunts of yours. Dinner lady. Maid. Catering staff. Now, laundress. I’m allergic to housework. It’s a genuine medical condition.”

“Not too much starch in my collars,” he teased as he steered her toward the far door.

They returned to the kitchen to find Zack and Ida already there. Zack was just finishing his dinner. He spooned a final green glob into his mouth as they entered. Standing by his table, Ida whispered with him, their heads close together. Zack, spotting the Doctor, stiffened. Ida looked up when her Captain’s attention shifted away from her.

“Oh, there you are,” she said. “We’ve been talking over accommodations.” She sketched something like a salute at Zack, who stood and, leaving his empty dinner tray behind, moved with her toward the newcomers.

“Back on duty,” Zack said, gruff but friendly as he edged between Rose and the Doctor and exited.

They nodded a farewell at him before turning to Ida, who was still talking, “There’s not much to offer. The dormitory took a hit in this last quake and we don’t get many couples out this far. The Archive, I mean, couples in service. We don’t get any visitors at all, of course, obviously. So, what I…”

The Doctor interrupted, “I’ve been thinking…that is…we’ve been discussing…your runes.” His attention was already focused on the far wall and he edged rudely sideways as he drew his glasses from an inside jacket pocket. Settling the specs on his face, he peered at, and then strode toward the writing, adding for Ida’s benefit, “And any old cupboard will do.”

“He doesn’t sleep much,” Rose said with a small apologetic smile. 

Leaving Ida behind, she followed the Doctor as he vaulted the short stair to crouch on the top step. He leaned in for a better view of Toby’s scrawled lettering. There were chairs nearby but Rose squeezed her hips onto the top step next to the Doctor’s trainers. He shifted naturally, giving no thought to making a bit more room for her to sit. It was a tight fit for them both but neither of them cared. They instinctively stayed close. While Rose studied the other people in the room, the Doctor took out his notebook and started drawing symbols.

Ida smiled, wanly, as she brought her clipboard to them. “Well, that answers that question.” Curious, Rose lifted her chin and Ida responded to the unasked query. “You don’t mind close quarters.”

“I guess not,” Rose admitted with a shy darting glance toward the Doctor. She played with a strand of her hair as she asked, “Does that matter?”

“Could do. As I said, we’ve grown suddenly pressed for space. But Zack never moved his things to the Captain’s quarters. He didn’t feel comfortable with the idea so soon after…” She didn’t finish her thought. Instead, after clearing her throat, she went on brusquely, “To point: there’s a room open. It’s nice by deep-space tour standards but certainly not palatial. The bunk is a bit bigger than standard issue, which is why I thought of it. The two of you could share for the rest of your stay.” She hesitated, noting Rose’s blush and then said carefully, “You might have to spoon up...”

“Perfect, thank you,” the Doctor muttered dismissively without breaking his concentration on the runes he was copying. 

Ida looked from one to the other of them, puzzled by the marked difference in their attitude toward sharing a room. He seemed impatient, but Rose showed signs of embarrassment. She wondered about the nature of their contract. It was binding, almost certainly. Maybe they were newlyweds or something, she thought, not used to making joint arrangements. That they were a couple was obvious. And Rose, despite her blushes, made no argument against having a shared bed. 

After a moment, Ida nodded and told Rose, “Habitation 8, out that door,” she pointed, “down one level, along corridor 43, room 1-1-6. It’s at the end of the corridor, just beyond the medical lab. If you’ll give me your thumbprints for identi-coding…” 

She held out her clipboard and Rose noted a small square device, about the size of a saltine cracker, attached to it. The device had a grey screen just large enough for a thumb to fit. Hoping she understood what was required, Rose pressed her thumb down on the screen. When it glowed green and bleeped, she lifted her thumb. The outline of her print stayed under the glass. Checking a miniscule readout, Ida nodded and then presented the clipboard for the Doctor. He didn’t offer his thumb, didn’t even glance around, though he could certainly see Ida in his peripheral vision. Rose nudged him in the ribs.

“You can let me in,” he murmured lovingly but with a great deal of distraction. Tilting his head, he leaned so close to the wall his nose bumped it as he peered at one particular scribble. “This is fascinating. The Nevri Muli of the Lor’qua Sphere have a religious symbol very similar to this one. Very similar, indeed.” He jotted a note in his leather bound book. “The Cosmic Cardsharp they call it, suggesting double-dealing or treachery.”

“I’ll just…let him in,” Rose said, crinkling her nose at Ida.

“But he’ll need an identicode if he’s going to…”

The Doctor snatched off his spectacles and, frowning, whipped around on Ida Scott. “Can I get a look at the originals of this?” he asked, waving one earpiece at the wall. “The pots or tablets or what have you?”

“No,” Toby said from the other side of the room, causing everyone to crane their necks and stare rudely at him. He was just putting his dinner tray away. Shoving it onto the stack with enough force to wobble the whole pile, he said, “I’m sorry but…the artifacts are very fragile.”

“I’m not going to damage them,” the Doctor said, in a tone that indicated he thought Toby wasn’t quite capable of grasping simple concepts. “I just need to make sure you’ve copied them correctly.”

“I have,” Toby said, bristling a bit. 

Rose patted the Doctor’s arm to alert him to the emotional undercurrent in the room. ‘Go easy,’ her touch said, ‘they don’t know us.’ 

“I can show you my notes,” Toby continued. “But the artifacts are…in a preservation solution and too important to jeopardize. Once they are coated…and set…I can let you handle them. Until then I have to stand firm.”

“Yes, all right,” the Doctor said, taking Rose’s tactile advice but immediately losing interest in social niceties. Sighing, he turned back to the writing on the wall. “I’ll see them first thing tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” Toby muttered with some intensity as he headed for the door. 

Rose and Ida watched him leave. “He seems a little edgy,” Rose remarked. 

“It’s that thing hanging over our heads,” Ida said. “Everyone is edgy. And Toby was quite fond of our dearly departed Captain. He’s taken the loss a lot harder than most.”

“Were they…close?” Rose asked made curious by a note in Ida’s voice, which seemed to imply intimacy.

“I don’t think so. The Captain was a hard man, professional but very cold. Still, he did seem to have a soft spot for Toby.” The main computer announced a new hour and suddenly the room started filling up with people. Ida looked over her shoulder as Scooti arrived with a merry giggle. “Anyway, water under the bridge as they used to say. Help yourself to dinner. We can make this your rotation.”

“Uhm…what exactly happens in the laundry?” Rose asked. Ida had been turning away but she stopped and looked back, perplexed. Rose explained, “I might take the job you offered the Doctor. He’s going to be busy with your runes.”

“Oh…I see,” Ida said, adjusting to the idea. She mother-henned the station and wasn’t used to having her arrangements dismissed so easily. But she also realized that these two had no reason to go along with her organizing efforts. They didn’t work for the Torchwood Archive or the government, and so had no allegiance to her. A stern talking-to or a show of disappointment probably wouldn’t sway them. She couldn’t reprimand them or garnishee their wages. The most she could do if they caused any serious waves was threaten to leave them behind, and that was an empty threat. Zack wouldn’t leave a stray dog on this rock. 

Accepting the situation with her usual good grace, she smiled and said, “It’s mostly supervising the Ood. Nothing too taxing. Just making sure they stay on schedule, collect all of the towels and uniforms and don’t forget any of the procedures. You’ll need to give them tasks each day and keep a close watch on their maintenance of the vacuum washers. Sometimes the Ood need a push to get started. It’s that sort of job.”

“I won’t have to press anyone’s suits, will I? I’m that bad with an iron.”

Ida laughed. “No, mostly you just need to fill out loads of paperwork. And encourage the Ood. They know what to do, they only need motivation.”

“Sounds fulfilling,” Rose sighed, inspiring the Doctor to break his concentration and dart a charmed glance her way. 

Rose didn’t notice his adoring expression, but Ida did. She filed it away in her well-organized mind and went on with her day. Rose sat watching as Ida and the other workers filled their dinner trays and found tables. She tried to imagine joining in with their conversations, sharing her day with them. If this was to be her life, she reckoned she might as well start getting used to it. But would she ever grow accustomed to the Ood? Feel it was okay to exploit them? She doubted it. 

Still, it looked like she and the Doctor were going to be stuck here. Unless he worked one of his miracles and managed to build another TARDIS or something, they would both need to adjust to the lifestyle. Prompted by the growl of her stomach, she went to have a peek at what was on the menu. Nothing on anyone’s plate looked appetizing, but Rose knew from experience that alien food could taste great and look horrid. Or conversely, look great and taste horrid. You never knew until you took your first bite.

“Don’t have the blue,” the pretty girl (Scooti , wasn’t it?) warned her, “Or the green.”

Rose smiled and nodded before turning her attention to her plate. She pointed at what appeared to be a bean dish after giving the Dinner Ood her tray. The creature ladled up a healthy serving of the bluish black pellets labeled Protein One. He…she…it asked her about sauce. Rose tried to project friendly mental vibes. But her attempt at conversation led to the Ood uttering a cryptic phrase about the Beast and its armies. Rose stared open-mouthed for a moment and then said, “I’m sorry? Wh--?”

“Apologies,” the Ood told her, tapping its communicator. “I said, ‘I hope you enjoy your meal.’”

It certainly hadn’t said that, but Rose saw no point in arguing. For all she knew the communicators picked up interstellar evangelists as well as Ood thought patterns. Reminded of ‘Welcome to Hell’ and wishing she were better at telepathy, she glanced toward the Doctor only to find he was still absorbed in his work. He could stay focused that way for hours. Probably, she didn’t need to tell him about an odd Ood. Probably, it didn’t matter. 

Shrugging off the incident, Rose looked for an open seat among the diners. She was reminded forcefully of the dinner hour at school. Luckily, Scooti waved her over to a table before she had to insinuate herself on anyone. Rose went happily, wondering about her complete lack of jealousy toward this beautiful girl. Maybe, it was her newfound sense of maturity, developing she’d noticed since she’d first learned of the pregnancy. Maybe, it was because the Doctor hadn’t seemed to notice anyone but her since they’d arrived. Thinking back, she realized that had been the case on every planet they’d visited recently. 

“You’ve nothing to drink,” Scooti remarked as Rose settled on a stool opposite her. 

“Jefferson, bring Rose a mug of CarbCaff,” the other diner at the table, a forty-ish woman with short-cropped red hair called out. Mr. Jefferson poured an extra cup of what looked and smelled like coffee and brought it to Rose on his way to his own seat. “I’m Eris,” the redhead went on in a smoky voice, stretching a hand across the table, “Medical Tech. Level 3, which is the best you’ll get out here so don’t come down with anything complicated.”

“Oh, we’ll be neighbors,” Rose told her. “Ida said she was putting us in the former Captain’s quarters.”

“About time someone moved into them,” Eris said. “And better you than me.” She shot a quick look over her shoulder at the Doctor and then leaned toward Rose to huskily whisper. “He’s a cute one. Where did you find him?”

“Henrik’s department store,” Rose quipped, casting a fond smile in the Doctor’s general direction. “He was on sale.” The other two didn’t laugh at her joke and she realized she’d probably said something anachronistic. “It’s a sort of…shopping…market…uhm, trading center…in London…on Earth.”

The other two nodded, but vaguely as if they still didn’t quite understand. 

“So, he’s a slave?” Eris guessed. “You bought him?”

“Cor, no!” Rose choked on her laugh, burbling a bit of her coffee-like drink. “It’s nothing like that. He’s…that is we’re…” She didn’t know quite how to put it. Boyfriend seemed too flippant. Companion seemed too formal. Lover wasn’t exactly accurate just now and anyway, she’d turn red if she said it. She decided abruptly to change the subject. “So, how long have you both been out here…in space, I mean?” 

“This is my first assignment,” Scooti said, obviously thrilled by the adventure. “I got this posting right out of training. I couldn’t believe the luck.”

Eris gave the younger girl’s shoulders a friendly squeeze just as Ida had done earlier and said, “And I was born on a freight-liner. Never sat foot on anything I’d care to call a home world. You?”

Rose pondered the question briefly, and then shrugged. “Don’t know. I’ve lost track,” she said. “But it must be a year or two by now.” She raised her voice, “Doctor? How long have we been traveling?”

Head bowed over his notes, he didn’t seem to hear her at first, but then he lifted his line of sight to meet hers and said, “You’re twenty-three.”

A shiver raced down Rose’s arms and she frowned. Four years? She’d been with him for four years. No wonder she felt more at home in the TARDIS. Dazed, she turned her attention to her food, forgetting all about her tablemates until Scooti’s hand covered hers.

“What’s wrong?” Scooti asked softly.

Rose took a deep breath and released it. “Oh, it’s…nothing. I just thought…I’d…” She sat her fork aside. Staring sightlessly toward the door, hand to her head, she wondered how long it had been since she and the Doctor last made love. So much had happened since then: losing Susan, the assault, recovering and travel. They’d been to a dozen planets and back for Christmas with her mother. She tried to add up the days and found they blended together in her mind. How many monthly periods had she had? Three? Four? Were they regular? She shot an appraising glance at Eris and then edged closer to whisper, “Do you know about female stuff? Babies?”

“I know this isn’t the place for one,” Eris said. “Why? You don’t think you’re pregnant?”

“No…no,” Rose said, hastily. “It’s just…I lost a child awhile back.”

“How awful for you,” Scooti said her big eyes full of sympathy. 

“Yeah,” Rose breathed, not wanting to go into it. The burning in her cheeks told her she was blushing furiously as she pressed on, “Look, what I was wondering was…if I’m okay to…you know…?” She ducked her head but kept her narrowed gaze fixed on the Med Tech. This really shouldn’t be so hard to discuss. She was twenty-three, after all, a long way from virginal. And she’d been with the same man for four years. All right, she’d been with Mickey for a bit at first…so, maybe it was more like two years with the Doctor. 

But she should be able to declare her desire out loud: I want to have sex with that man over there, the cute one with the sexy specs. He’s the one I’m going home with tonight. And yeah, we just might make good use of that narrow bed, if you catch my drift. 

Eris didn’t quite know what she was getting at. “You want to try again? Or…?”

“Sex,” Rose hissed. To her horror, in the corner of her eye, she noticed Mr. Jefferson turn to stare. She lowered her voice to an even softer burr. “I was…I had an operation. They…took the baby. And we haven’t…you know…it’s been…well, too long.”

“Oh,” Eris said, lightly, “So, you two are under contract?”

Frowning, Rose shook her head slightly. “Contract?” 

“Exclusive reproduction rights? Or aren’t you exclusive?”

“Oh,” Rose gasped, catching the drift of the question if not its deeper meaning. “Yeah!” She shot another fond glance at the Doctor. “We’re…pretty exclusive.”

“Damn,” Eris said, exchanging a ‘just our luck’ look with Scooti. “We were hoping one of you would be open to renegotiation. Scooti and I have an NBNE arrangement,” off of Rose’s puzzled frown, she clarified, “Non-Binding, Non-Exclusive. We’re always on the lookout for potential partners.”

“You know how it is on a closed base like this,” Scooti said. “Once you’ve done everyone who’s willing…”

“Ah…no…sorry,” Rose said, doing her best not to blush. Then, realizing she was probably being rude, she said,” “I mean, no, we’re not looking for…anything,” she stretched the final word out until she thought of something else to say, “different or more.”

“A happy couple,” the smiling Eris sighed, her tone making compatibility sound as rare and lovely as Rose suddenly realized it was. “Tell you what...I could run the standard reproductive tests. Stop by after dinner and I’ll take a look at you.”

“Thanks,” Rose said. Then, to keep the conversation moving along, she spoke blithely, “So, what do you do around here for fun?” As soon as the question left her lips she regretted it. What if they went into explicit detail?

“Fun? What’s that?” Scooti laughed.

“Yeah,” Eris drawled, “This planet isn’t exactly the Pan-Galactic seat of entertainment. Now, that we know you aren’t available and you haven’t smuggled in a sex slave from the Earth market, I reckon we’re back to playing cards and pitching ore into the gravity well.” She feigned regret as she poked Scooti with an elbow, “And for one brief moment things were looking up around here.” 

Rose laughed along with them. She wasn’t comfortable, yet, in such a sexually-open society, but she’d gotten used to Jack. And it felt good to have some female company for a change. She’d missed Shareen teasing her about boys. From time to time, she even missed talking about fashion and hairstyles and cute celebrities, too. Most of what Scooti and Eris discussed was gossipy insight into their coworkers. Rose tried to follow it but soon lost track of the names. It was trivial, of course, the sort of conversations her mother always had with the neighbors. Rose could never again be enchanted by such simple day-to-day topics, but the chattering soothed her in a way. It made her feel at home.

Still, when Eris left for her duty-shift, Scooti went to sit with Mr. Jefferson and Rose was relieved to be joined by the Doctor. Her mind craved stimulation and he was sure to provide it. She looked at him expectantly as he sank into Scooti ’s vacated seat. He’d brought a cup of the red, syrupy beverage one of the Ood had given her earlier. It splashed over the side of the cup he plunked dejectedly down in front of him. 

“It’s hopeless gibberish,” he sighed. “Even if I had the TARDIS, I…” He broke off, what use was it to tell her about computer programs that no longer existed? 

Rose stretched out a hand to him. Craving the touch, he toyed with her fingers as he took a tentative sip of his drink. The syrup wasn’t sweet, as he’d expected it to be and he shuddered slightly, pulling a disgusted face before frowning down into his cup.

Laughing, Rose said, “Yeah, it’s salty. Weird, huh?”

“Electrolytes,” he told her. After taking another taste and experimentally swishing the fluid around in his mouth, he said, “Zinc, magnesium, other trace minerals. Good for concentration and counteracting stress.” 

Setting the cup down again, so he wouldn’t have to release her hand, he took a small waxed paper tube from an inner jacket pocket. Flicking the tube open with his thumb, he sprinkled some of the brown powder it contained into his drink. Jaumelia bark. Rose knew because he’d told her. She wasn’t sure why he’d suddenly developed such a taste for the stuff, but at least once a week he added it to his food. Maybe it reminded him of home. 

“Better than sugar in my case,” he continued, making the Jaumelia bark tube a bookmark for his notes. “You don’t want me sloshed.”

“Not just now, no.”

“Maybe later?” he asked, a teasing smile touching his lips.

“I’ve got an appointment, later. But I might work you in before morning. You’ll want to conserve that,” she reminded him, nodding at his packet of spice. 

“Oh, Jaumelia trees are fairly common,” he said, “Helclymnixtahcorapilliana made sure of that. They just don’t smell the same as they do on Gallifrey.”

“Helcla…who?”

“Helcia, to you,” the Doctor said. “She was Omega’s true companion. Legend says she seeded the universe with Jaumelia trees.”

“Like Johnny Appleseed?” Rose murmured through a wide smile.

“A bit, yes. But she would see it more as St. Patrick driving the serpents from Ireland,” the Doctor said. “She got tired of all those demi-Gallifreyans showing up on her doorstep and took preemptive steps. The Jaumelia tree provides temporary immunocontraception for my species, keeps Johnny’s seed from taking root…if you will. Legend says the perfume alone did the trick on old Omega, which is why Rassilon had all those groves planted. But science has since proved it’s the essential oils. Found in the fruit, the seeds…and…” he picked up the waxed paper tube and gave it a little shake before tucking it back in his pocket, “…the ground bark.”

“Ah…” Rose said and then shaking her head, she said, “What?”

“It’s protection,” he said, simply, “From unwanted pregnancy.”

Rose blinked. “Oh,” she said, and then a second or two later repeated herself, “Oh. That’s…”

“Unnecessary?” the Doctor prompted when she didn’t go on. “Presumptive?”

“I’m trying to think of a word that doesn’t imply you are sweet but still means…sweet,” Rose said. 

“Oh…well…” He sucked in and released a deep breath, and then, waving a dismissive hand, said, “You can get back to me.”

She nodded at his notebook. “No luck at all, then?”

Crossing his arms, he glanced down at the scribbling on the open pages. “There’s some resemblance to the Nevri Muli pictograms. One or two letters. Well…one or two…if you squint and…hold your head at the proper angle. Some vague commonalities with half a dozen other scripts but…nah…” he let his gaze drift to the ceiling as he sighed, “nothing concrete, nothing to be going on with.”

“It’s early yet,” Rose said, encouragingly. 

The Doctor dropped his line of sight back to her and widened his eyes. “I rather thought that it was quite late,” he countered and Rose knew he wasn’t talking about the relative time of day. 

The lights flickered, distracting her before she could think of a suitably supportive response. Ida used her wristcom to contact Zack, in the control center. He told her the Scarlett System was breaking up, causing interference.

“You might want to see this,” Ida said, addressing the Doctor, “A moment in history.” 

He lifted his chin a bit, but seemed only marginally interested as he watched her go to the observation window controls. Rose thought he looked depressed. His arms were crossed protectively over his chest. His whole body had a certain stiffness, as if he ached all over and didn’t want to move. The loss of the TARDIS had to be weighing on him. But he looked up, as she did, when the roof rolled back to reveal a gorgeous star field. 

The colors stole your breath away. Brilliant red and gold and silver sprayed across the black canvas of heaven. Ida acted the tour guide, talking of the civilizations, planets and solar systems dying, being crushed into nothing. It daunted. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she finished, “We have witnessed its passing.”

Did that mean the Pelushi lived on, then? Rose wondered. All those worlds? Stars? People? If they existed in someone’s memory, weren’t they still alive in a way? Wasn’t that really all anyone could hope for…to be remembered? She heard the Doctor ask, rather meekly, “No, could you leave it open? I won’t go mad, I promise.”

“How would you know?” Ida countered and he almost smiled. 

Rose looked up. She’d seen a lot of strange things in her time. Too many to believe the view would drive her mad but she couldn’t help noticing how quickly Ida cleared the room. Eying the black hole, she ran a theory by the Doctor.

“I’ve seen films and things, yeah? They say black holes are like gateways to another universe.”

Hope, the Doctor realized, drawing in a long breath, she still had hope. And he was available to crush it. How handy of him.

“Not that one,” he told her with deep regret. “It just eats.”

“A long way from home,” she said, wistfully.

He looked back at her, his precious girl, toying with her earring, staring up at something people with less imagination feared. Who was he to deny her hope? Anything was possible after all, if this planet could exist. He pointed his pen, aiming it toward a dark sliver to the side of the great star, and said, “Go that way…turn right and go about…uh…oh…five hundred years and you’ll reach the Earth.”

She fumbled in her pocket and he thought, for a second, she might be looking for something to write the directions down on but then she took her cell phone out and checked the signal. It didn’t work. Too much interference, he imagined. She shrugged it off, saying she wouldn’t know what to tell Jackie in any case. He sympathized. He wouldn’t want to explain this mess either. Jackie, if she ever heard of it, would probably box his ears for getting Rose into so much trouble.

Rose asked him if he could build another TARDIS. If only he could. “They were grown, not built,” he said. And with his home planet gone, they were stuck. Trapped. Temporally becalmed. He was truly an exile now. An immigrant to this time period, he’d been stranded, rather like a shark washed into a tidal pool by an unusually large wave. He had no idea how he would survive, let alone care for Rose.

She accepted his explanation, nodding and then taking a deep breath said, “Well, it could be worse. This lot said they’d give us a lift.”

Shock vibrated through him. She didn’t seem distressed at the prospect of living out their days in this time. “And then what?” he asked, curious as to how she saw their altered circumstance. She stared at him blankly for a second or two and then gave it some real thought. 

“I don’t know,” she said. “Find a planet? Get a job? Live a life same as the rest of the universe.”

He let out his pent breath with a snort, surprised not to feel more alarmed by her suggestion. She was talking about a normal life. The sort no Time Lord dared contemplate. Well, no, that wasn’t exactly true. His people were quite settled, indolent in a way. They just weren’t domesticated. No homes. No ties. They lived, always adrift in the eternal sea, just like their most primal ancestors…able to molt, change…cast off the old life and all of its baggage without regret.

“I’d have to settle down,” he heard himself saying. He didn’t really sound upset by the prospect, only taken aback. 

A part of his mind listened in detached amazement as he rattled on about getting a house, with doors and carpets. A proper house…for Rose. Because, of course, he didn’t need a house. Any old cupboard would do for him. He could hitch a ride on some tramp steamer, live by his wits and charm. He could see the universe. But Rose needed roots. A bed. Walls. Carpets. She wanted to find a planet and a job and, it stood to reason, they would need a house. The thought of it terrified him, but he also felt strangely buoyant, as if poised on the brink of a new and wondrous adventure.

“You’d have to get a mortgage,” Rose sang, delighted when he grimaced.

“No, no, I’m dying, that’s it,” he lamented dramatically. “I am dying. It is all over.”

“What about me?” she laughed. “I’ll have to get one, too.”

He stopped enjoying the game and stilled, staring at her. She didn’t understand. And he couldn’t explain it, couldn’t nudge her in the right direction. She’d have to come to the conclusion on her own as he had. His Time Lord Honor allowed nothing else. She came to it rather quickly. 

The world seemed to shift dramatically as she said, “Or, I don’t know. It could be the same one. We could both…” She met his eye and had her own moment of terrifying revelation. The Doctor’s hearts stopped beating and he was sure hers had, too. Pressure built in his ears. He longed to pop them but he couldn’t move. He could only stare at her as she gasped, “Housemates,” as if the breath had just been knocked out of her, “Share…or not…whatever.” She looked away quickly toward the maddening sun, blushing crimson as she went on, “We’ll sort something out.”

It hurt, physically. Longing, like a birth pang, twisted through his gut but he remained unaccountably calm. They were so close to the truth, now. Uncovering it was like prying a gem from sucking soil but they both had to see it, acknowledge it. They were never going to part. It had always been there, that gem of truth, unspoken between them. They weren’t friends or traveling companions. They were a couple. But saying the words made it real, not a ‘someday’ thing. This was it. 

Knowing they should let it go, take a little breather, the Doctor dropped his chin to his chest, sighing, “Anyway…”

Just as Rose said, “We’ll see.” He could hear her strained smile but he didn’t dare look up. His eyes would surely plead his case.

He was, after all, a petitioner. It was for her to decide when…or if…they were going to sort something out. What the hell was he doing? he wondered, almost smiling. Did he have any idea how to be a good helpmate? Housemate? Husband? Did she crave some primitive gesture like a ring or a ceremony? Of course, she might find that presumptuous. She might want a life apart from him, eventually. He had no idea how he’d take that. Not well, he imagined. But humans changed their minds about things over time. Maybe Rose had changed her mind about him already. They hadn’t had sex in months. She seemed completely uninterested. And he was essentially responsible for her being stuck in this godforsaken spot in the first place. 

“I promised Jackie I’d always take you home,” he said, knowing he had no right to make a second promise precluding the first one. 

“Everyone leaves home sometime,” Rose said, matter-of-factly.

People did. He had. He’d left home to travel and met someone he would never have met if he’d stayed on Gallifrey. He’d been so naïve before the war. Before Rose. He’d had no idea he could feel this way, terrified and hopeful at the same time. But leaving home and being better off for it were two different things. 

“Not to end up stuck here,” he said, offering her a chance to express her disappointment in him.

“Yeah, but stuck with you,” she murmured. “That’s not so bad.”

He didn’t dare smile but it was hard to hold in the swell of joy as it expanded his chest. Love and light seemed to wash over him, though he still felt numb at the tips of his fingers, in his feet and toes. “Yeah?” he asked, finally looking up at her, not sure if she was saying what his hearts told him she was.

“Yes!” She said, turning a brightly confident smile on him, meeting his eye without flinching. 

Yes. 

Sweet mother of creation, she’d said it. She’d accept him, accepted it, the inevitable union. From the expression on her face, she knew what she was saying, too. Peace settled on him. Peace, like he’d never known. He took a breath and then another. It was easier to breathe than he’d expected it would be. He’d expected to feel trapped but he didn’t. 

Three breaths into his new life, Rose’s phone rang. She answered it. Listened for a few seconds, and then hurled the cell across the room. He followed its flight with his eyes, unable to summon any sense of alarm despite the frown on Rose’s face. Whatever new storm was brewing, they would weather it together. 

“Who was it?” he asked.

She was staring blindly after her phone but seemed to come out of a trance. “I…a voice,” she shuddered, and her fear transmitted itself to him in a rush, “It was horrible…like when the Ood spoke to me.”

“The Ood spoke to you? Which Ood? When?” He scowled like a jealous lover. “About what?

Rose shook herself and turned toward him. “Earlier,” she said, pointing toward the serving line, “When I was getting my dinner, one of the Ood said something about ‘the Beast’ and ‘a war on God’ and then just now, on my phone…” she trailed off into troubled silence.

“You think the two events are connected?”

“I think…yes,” she said, meeting his eye. “I can feel it…somehow.”

He sucked on the inside of his cheek for a moment and then launched to his feet. “That’s good enough for me. Come on,” he said, seizing her hand and moving toward the door. 

“Where are we going?” Rose asked, breathlessly rushing to keep pace with him.

“Ood Central,” he called over his shoulder.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When they arrived at Ood habitation, a vast underground chamber, they found Danny on Ood duty. 

“Evening,” the Doctor sang out as he propelled down the stairs.

Danny greeted them as ‘the mysterious couple’ and asked if they were settling in but the Doctor was in no mood for idle chitchat. He got straight down to the business of sussing out Ood communication. Danny explained about the interface device and the telepathy field but in a condescending way that belittled the Ood and had Rose doubting his qualifications as an ‘Ethics’ officer. No matter how you sliced and packaged it, slavery didn’t strike her as particularly ethical. 

Yet, Danny was more than ready to go along with it. Maybe it helped him to think of the Ood as ‘cattle.’ Maybe he could dismiss low-level empaths as somehow less important than other people, but Rose couldn’t. And she didn’t like his smirking, either. He reminded her a bit of Jimmy Stone, cute but shallow. She would never go for his type these days. It suddenly hit her, quite forcefully, that she wasn’t going to be going for any type, ever again. She and the Doctor would be…what? Finding a house, she guessed, living a life…together. 

As Danny tried to verbally maneuver out from under the Doctor’s pinning gaze, Rose thought about the future. A life together, she repeated silently. She got all tingly thinking about what it might mean to be half of a serious couple. Not just a girlfriend, a flatmate, but a…what? Soulmate? The Doctor’s true companion. Her stomach dropped with an icy slosh. The sensation reminded her of that moment at the top of the rollercoaster, seconds before your car plunges downward, when you find you are both excited and at the same time amazed you let your friend talk you into getting on the ride. Rose didn’t think she wanted off the ride, though. She might scream as they went over, she might clutch the Doctor’s hand for support, but she didn’t think she would have things any other way. 

Danny broke into her abstracted thoughts, asking what the Ood in the kitchen had told her. She couldn’t quite remember. Then, he asked her about her communicator device. What had it said?

“He is awake,” she responded.

“And you will worship him,” the Ood on the next level chorused. 

The Doctor straightened and repeated her words, “He is awake.”

The Ood responded like a well-trained congregation reciting from the Book of Common Prayer. “And you will worship him.”

“Worship who?” The Doctor demanded. “Who’s talking to you? Who is it?”

The Ood remained silent, staring. The Doctor broke from a standstill and, cornering around the guard railing, pelted down the stairs to their level. Rose followed him at a slower pace while Danny held well back, calling half-hearted encouragement from the balcony.

“You won’t get anything out of them,” he said, noticing the Doctor was questioning the Ood. “They can’t understand new concepts until they’ve been psychically reinforced.”

“Maybe someone’s reinforcing them,” Rose ground out around a falsely bright smile.

“You think so, too?” The Doctor asked her. 

She hadn’t expected to be taken quite so seriously but when she considered his question, she nodded. “I can feel it. Underneath.” She pointed at the floor.

The Doctor’s head bobbled through an extended bout of nodding as he stared into the distance, digesting this info. “Yes,” he agreed, “Right at the heart of this planet.” Then, he turned, bracing his hands on his knees and peered into the slanted eyes of the nearest Ood. A brief physical examination told him nothing. He thought about establishing a mental link. “I wonder if I could make contact with…”

Alarms sounded and the floor bucked erratically, throwing the Doctor and Rose forward into the seated Ood. A stiff breeze whipped through the room. The air cooled rapidly in the wake of this brief wind. Running feet drummed in the corridors. Danny was yelling something into his wristcom but Rose was more interested in the computer’s announcement of an ‘Emergency Hull Breach.’ 

The Doctor focused on the announcement as well. He caught at Rose’s sleeve and, tugging her along, raced for and mounted the stairs. Intent only on fleeing, he opened doors when they got in his way, spinning their wheel locks like a sailing master bringing his ship about. Rose and Danny stayed with him. They dashed through a habitation area and into the corridor beyond. There they were joined by a few other people, all of them running. This didn’t seem like a good time to question anyone’s motivation. Everyone went along with the crowd, pushing and jostling their way toward Mr. Jefferson who urged them on with shouts and gestures. 

“Come on,” he bellowed, holding the door open, “Keep moving.”

They did. Rose and the Doctor ran well beyond the point where most of their companions stopped for a breather. Hearing the door seal, feeling the air warming on his face, the Doctor pivoted and retraced his steps, calling out to Jefferson, “Everyone all right? What happened? What was it?”

“Hull breach,” Rose heard Jefferson say. “We were open to the elements.”

“That wasn’t a quake,” the Doctor countered. “What caused it?”

Neither Jefferson nor Zack seemed to know. All that was certain was the black sun had taken another big bite out of the base. Several sections were now uninhabitable. Rose turned her attention to the wounded. There were scores of people with scrapes and bruises but Toby seemed worst off. He’d been the last one through the door. Maybe he’d suffered some oxygen deprivation. Certainly, his hands were shaking as he huddled on the floor. Rose knelt beside him, offering comfort. He looked into her eyes like a lost child seeking solace. She put an arm around his shoulders as he told the Doctor what he remembered about the moments before the breach. His recollections weren’t very helpful.

“Scooti Manista, report,” Jefferson requested of his wristcom. 

He got no answer. 

Scooti, they soon learned, had no voice in the world anymore. She’d been sucked into the vacuum of space. “She was twenty,” Ida announced, as they stared up though the observation window at Scooti’s lifeless husk, “Twenty years old.” 

Beautiful. Vivacious. Dead…at twenty. They all had trouble digesting it. Looking up at the dead girl – gently spinning, almost it seemed, waving goodbye as she drifted toward the black hole—Rose felt her gorge rise and covered her mouth. She’d seen death before, stark and sudden, but it always sickened her. Like the Doctor, who apologized for every life lost in his wake, Rose felt somehow responsible, as if there were more to do, as if she should not mourn but act. Stop the march of time, perhaps. Turn back the clock. Bring life to the lifeless. Her guilt made no objective sense. She didn’t understand the pulse of demanding godhood within her. But she did believe that somehow, ultimately, she would be held responsible for Scooti Manista’s passing.

The drill stopped.

For a moment, Rose didn’t understand what was happening to stir such tension in the room. She moved to the Doctor’s side, seeking enlightenment, but it was Ida who explained. “We’ve stopped drilling. We’ve made it.”

The silence lasted less than five minutes and then the base became an agitated anthill of activity. There was a grand scurrying. Instructions boomed from the intercoms. Everyone started talking at once, moving toward exits. Rose knew the exact second when the excitement of the group infected the Doctor. He was standing behind and a bit to the side of her when the fever seized him. His whole body seemed to crackle with suppressed energy. 

There was something new in the universe. Down below, at the center of the planet, there was a place as yet unseen…untouched…untested. He longed to explore--craved new knowledge, like a drug--needed his freedom the way other people needed food or air. He would not, could not, be contained in a house with walls and doors. Not yet. Probably not in her lifetime. She would have to live his life, the life of a nomad. Yes, it would be dangerous. Yes, they might die. Yes, it was worth it to be with him…one second longer…to watch him uncover one more piece of the puzzle, one more precious detail about the structure and workings of creation. 

As the others scattered to their assigned duties, Rose reached a decision about her future. She sensed it spread out before her, hard to see, hard to even imagine, but at the same time…intriguing, inviting. She knew then she would never leave him. Never chose a divergent path. Drawing a cleansing breath, she exhaled, releasing with the breath all expectations of a normal human life. Nerves steadied, she turned to face the Doctor with a bright and genuinely compassionate smile. 

“We ran by a whole rack of spacesuits back there,” she pointed toward the far door. “They’d probably let you borrow one.”

Hand jammed in his pockets, he rocked up on his toes and bounced, grinning madly. But he didn’t rush off immediately. She could tell he wanted to but, instead, he met her eye with intense and sudden sobriety and asked, “What about you?”

“Someone’s got to man the com system, make sure you make it back to the surface,” she said, playfully wrinkling her nose. “Besides, I told you, I’ve got an appointment.”

“Ah, yes,” he said, head tilted to one side as he beamed down on her. “An assignation, I shouldn’t wonder. I said you were going native.”

“You’ve found me out,” Rose agreed with faux resignation. “As soon as you’re a mile underground, I’m meeting Toby in habitation six for a spot of NBNE,” she said, with a click of the tongue and wink. “He’s promised to show me his artifacts.”

“Oh, well done!” the Doctor exclaimed, grinning happily as he took her arm to steer her through the door into the corridor. “Be sure to take copious notes.”

With an indignant snort, Rose twisted free of his grip, while at the same time, pushing his shoulder, shoving him away. “Good to know you’ve got your priorities straight,” she laughed. 

His eyes found hers as she backed along the corridor in the opposite direction from the one he’d have to take to get suited up. Their gazes locked. He said her name softly, holding her attention. His mouth fell open, stayed open while his lips formed letters but not words. Rose had the sense he wanted to say something profound but couldn’t quite manage it. She waited.

Finally, after some internal wrangling, he simply said, “See ya at the send off?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” she assured him. 

Pivoting on her heel, she turned and, hair flipping back and forth in time with her steps, strode off without looking back at him over her shoulder. Whatever he’d been struggling to say, she didn’t need to hear it. She needed no promises, no reassuring words. This was the life she’d chosen. They’d be okay as long as he was free to roam. He’d keep coming back to her as long as she believed in him. 

He had, at least, that one trait in common with Oberon, the fairy king. 

END THIS PART


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More adventures with the Ood and other people on The Impossible Planet. The Doctor goes into the Satan Pit. Rose gets examined by a doctor and explains something of her condition. And we get that one line that still holds true to this day in Doctor Who Canon..."If I believe in one thing, just one, I believe in her."

_I’ve seen fake gods and bad gods and demigods and would-be gods and out of all that, out of that whole pantheon, if I believe in one thing…just one…I believe in her!_

The Doctor took a few wrong turns before stumbling upon a rack of spacesuits. They weren't where he expected them to be. Puzzled by their location, he eyed them warily for a moment. Perhaps they were the same ones he and Rose had run by earlier, perhaps another identical set. Tapping his chin with one finger, he stood contemplating the suits with ill-concealed suspicion while he mentally retraced his route. He glanced over his shoulder, and then back to the suits. Different set, he felt. Still, serviceable. The only obstacle between him and protective gear was a Plexiglas shield. 

His brief search for a way around this obstacle revealed a thumbprint identi-lock set in the wall. After pouting over his failure to create a personal identity code, he considered forcing the lock. Even started to ease the sonic screwdriver from an inside pocket but hesitated with it halfway out. Rose seemed to be with him, placing her hand over his, urging him to reconsider. They were going to be living with these people, the ghostly gesture reminded him. Better try asking first before initiating random acts of vandalism. Pressing his lips together and bobbing his head, he tucked the screwdriver away. A quick retrace of his steps brought him to a door and intercom. 

He toggled the switch a few times. “Hello?” he said into the speaker, toggling some more. “Hello? Zack, please. Captain Cross-Blaine? Are you there, Zack? Or Ida Scott, I suppose. Anyone?”

“Doctor?” Zack’s voice crackled back at him. “Is that you?”

“Zack,” the Doctor crowed, cheerfully. “Good to hear from you and…yes…it is me…”

“State the nature of your emergency.”

“Ah…not an emergency…not exactly. Not yet…I…

“Then, stay off the ‘coms. We’re very busy just now and….”

“Spacesuit,” the Doctor interrupted. “Sorry. Need a spacesuit. And they’re locked.”

“A spacesuit? Where are you? I can’t have you going outside. Or…is there danger of another breech?”

The Doctor grimaced as he corrected himself. “Oh, no…rather…I should say want. I want a spacesuit. I’m in Corridor,” he held onto the word as he leaned back and craned to see the sign, “Sixteen. Corridor sixteen? And I would like to borrow a spacesuit…” as an afterthought he added, “and go down to point zero.”

“That’s out of the question. Only authorized personnel are allowed to…”

“I’m sorry, Captain, you seem to be breaking up. Could you repeat that?” the Doctor asked, smirking as he turned away from the intercom. 

So much for reason, he thought as he aimed his screwdriver at the lock. Rose couldn’t say he hadn’t tried. Not that she would say anything of the kind. Rose didn’t nag or scold. Granted, she might disapprove. Frown a bit. Shake her head and roll her eyes at him. He didn't mind. He knew she steered his course, but gently. Like a fixed star point, she beckoned him toward a kinder shore. And he was usually content to let her guide him away from sharp-edged impulses. He seldom felt coerced. He liked pleasing her. So much so that the few times he’d set his will against hers she’d overcome him easily. Mickey, who shared his affliction, had called him on his weakness for Rose, intimating he would run after her. Come back for her. Dog her footsteps until she warmed to him again. 

It was true. He would. But she’d proved as constant in her affections. It never took long for one of them to break through any barrier the other erected. They forgave each other’s trespasses, he and Rose. Tell me you’re sorry, he’d said once, after she’d nearly unraveled her world. And she’d offered up the sorrow from her heart. She could turn aside the rising flood of his anger with a smile or a sigh. Her compassion flowed from an apparently ceaseless spring. He wouldn't deny she felt free to tell him off, vent her own displeasure. But mostly she seemed as delighted with him as he was with her. If she was jealous, he suffered it. If he grew tetchy, she soothed. 

Though he still shuddered at the thought of a house, even in such daunting confines he was sure he and Rose would get along swimmingly. He tried to envision it, the domestic life. Would it be the cliché, a rose-covered cottage and a nine-to-five job? Or a sleek penthouse apartment and a bit of excitement? Or a boat? He rather fancied the idea of life at sea. Of course, space travel was always an option. Surely there were still unexplored worlds. They could find one or six. Fight dragons or pirates. Become pirates. Build a log cabin. Or sleep under the stars. 

‘Otter Settles Down,’ the Doctor thought, trying on the concept as he tried on his pilfered spacesuit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hamster Gets Lost,” Rose muttered as she took another turn into a dead-end. She spent a few moments imagining the book cover for a new story in the Hamster & Otter series: A spacesuited Otter stood alone with a paw shielding his eyes as he searched the horizon for some sign of his friend.

She needed the mental break. It felt like she’d been scrambling down tunnels for hours. The earthquake and subsequent breech had closed bulkheads and cut off normal access routes. Rose clambered over fallen debris as she retraced her steps for the fourth time. The identical corridors reminded her of the hamster habitat she’d owned as a child. The gift, a typically tactless one from her crazy Uncle Eddie, had led to Mickey teasing her mercilessly. Hamster ownership had been more of a burden than a treat for round-cheeked, buck-toothed Rose, but now, pausing to catch her breath, she felt a pang of sympathy for her long dead pets. 

Trapped in their plastic tubing, the little fur balls had been forced to rely on hamster cunning to navigate their way to food dish and water bottle. At least she had a ‘you are here’ map at every habitation chamber. Not that the maps were helping her find her way around the damaged base. Determined not to call for help, she crossed her own track several more times before she located a clear route to Corridor 43. Adding to her confusion, the video game style of the computerized map’s touch screen required a bit of time to master. At first, the view swooped, panned and zoomed erratically whenever she put a hand on the controls. But she managed to figure out the steering in the end. Once she had a clear picture of her surroundings, a brief reconnoiter set her course and she made her way to the medical lab in a matter of minutes. 

The lab, when she found it, was dimly lit and in chaos. Pale emergency lights flickered. Equipment crowded the center space. Machines on wheels seemed to have rolled randomly to their current positions. A beam had fallen across the room, crushing several pieces of medical equipment and one of the two curtain-shrouded beds. Rose hesitated in the hatchway, her claustrophobia triggered by the medicinal smells and close quarters. She might have turned away but muffled sobbing drew her in, directed her steps toward the undamaged bed. When she eased the green privacy curtain aside, she found Eris on the floor, huddled in a corner, weeping. 

Coming, as it did, on the heels of her lab’s destruction, the news of Scooti’s death had been the last straw for Eris. She’d sunk to the ground in grief and stayed down. Her arms were wrapped around her knees. Her face was buried in the crook of one elbow. The others, busy with the drilling shaft, had ignored their minor bumps and bruises. Nobody had gone to medical. They’d forgotten their medic. Glancing around, Rose felt a wash of empathy for the woman. She shouldn’t have to face her loss alone. 

“Eris?” Rose crouched next to her, putting out a tentative hand to lightly caress her hair. “It’s Rose. Rose Tyler. Are you okay?” 

Eris gave a strangled little sob and curled into a tighter ball. Sighing, Rose let her knees buckle as she pressed a shoulder against the wall, sliding down it to sit. She sorted out her legs so she and Eris were side by side. 

Then, she gathered the weeping woman into a hug, murmuring, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Eris turned into Rose’s shoulder, gripped her fiercely, holding on. Time ticked by. Neither of them spoke. Every so often, Rose crooned a meaningless but soothing series of notes. Eris gasped and burbled. Eventually, motivated by her stuffy, streaming sinuses, she lifted her head and, shifting her weight to one hip, fished a wadded hankie from her lab smock pocket. Rose tactfully inched a short distance away as Eris wiped her face and blew her nose. Elbows braced on her bended knees, hands clutching and scrunching the hankie, Eris took a few unsteady breaths. Her red-rimmed, swollen eyes stared straight ahead, refusing to focus on anything closer than the far wall.

“I can come back later,” Rose offered.

Eris didn’t appear to hear her. “She was so young,” she said.

“And beautiful,” Rose said, sliding her palm across Eris’ hunched shoulders. “You must have been happy together.”

Eris huffed, and then sniffed. She mopped under her nose again with the hankie. Her gaze crawled restlessly along the floor as she shook her head. “No. I wasn’t. I thought I wanted more. I never told her I loved her. I wanted to. Started to a dozen times. But I just couldn’t say it…those awful words.” She sighed, chin falling to her chest.

“Sometimes it’s hard to say. Sometimes the feeling is too…big.”

“I worried about silly things…being older. Contracts. Assignments. I was afraid she’d want to change me. We were always looking for something new…” She paused for so long Rose felt certain she’d finished speaking, but then she said, “I should have...said.”

“She knew. I’m sure she knew,” Rose told her. “Love’s…funny.” She chuckled softly, sympathetically. “That’s the word, yeah? Funny?”

Eris wearily lolled her head against the wall, cutting her glance to look at Rose. “Do you love him?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you told him?”

Rose shifted uneasily. She hadn’t. She couldn’t even think about it without a lump closing her throat, without facing the inevitable horror of one day losing him. But he knew. He had to know. “He knows. We have a sort of…understanding.”

“So did we,” Eris sighed. 

Nodding, Rose glanced away. She couldn’t help thinking about the Doctor going down to Point Zero alone. Should she tell him before he went? Would he think she was fussing? She studied a nearby machine, watched it churn out a long strip of printed data.

“I can come back,” she repeated, softly – almost to herself. “When you’re feeling better.”

“No,” Eris breathed. “I’ll help you. Run your tests. I just need a minute.” Her gaze darted from the damaged bed to a messy counter, and then swept over several of the misaligned machines. Tears glistened in her lashes as she assessed the room. “Everything is falling apart. We shouldn’t be here…we shouldn’t have come to this hellhole.”

“Maybe you should take a break,” Rose suggested. “We could go for a coffee.” 

“I…don’t…” Eris began, each word costing her a breath. Breaking off, she surged to her feet. She stood swaying for a moment and then looked down into Rose’s face, studying her through narrowed eyes. “Do you still want that exam?”

Scrambling up, Rose shook her head, denying it. “We can do it later. Don’t go to any trouble.”

Eris barked out a bitter little laugh. “You are the least of my troubles,” she said, brusquely. Gesturing toward the chaos in the center of the room, she added, “I’ve got a ton of metal in the middle of my lab. Half of the equipment needs recalibrating. My lover was just killed. And we’re short a bed.” Stepping around Rose, she went to the counter and began yanking open drawers, gathering instruments. She fastened each probe and meter into the snap-secured straps of a blue utility belt. The belt’s soft cloth folded easily into a portable package. Eris added a few tissues and some colorful plastic tubing to her smock pockets. “But you…you’re easy,” she said, scooping up the folded belt, “And right. I need to get out of here. They put you in the room across the hall?”

Frowning, Rose glanced toward the hatch. “The Captain’s Quarters? I haven’t been there yet. But I suppose I can get in.” She didn’t sound confident, but then Eris didn’t need much encouragement to leave the lab.

“Let’s find out,” she said, taking Rose by the elbow and steering her through the obstacle course of medical equipment. 

The tiny claustrophobic lab was as crowded as a Victorian parlor. Rose breathed a sigh of relief when they stepped into the corridor. The walls were much closer but she could see for some distance. Focusing down the hall, she ignored her perception of the corridor collapsing in on her. She wouldn’t be able to avoid tight spaces if she was going to be living on a sanctuary base. She’d need to get over her fear. Maybe the Doctor could help her with hypnosis or something. Or maybe she could tough it out. Taking herself in hand, she moved ahead of Eris, crossing to the door of her new quarters. Locating the identi-lock, Rose pressed her thumb down on its glossy surface until there was a soft click from the door. With practiced ease, Eris turned the wheel on the hatch and the door hissed as it opened inward. 

Ducking their heads, they entered another small room. The overhead lights came on automatically and the computer spoke in greeting. “Welcome, Rose Tyler,” its machine-voice declared. “Can I interest you in tonight’s musical selection or perhaps a holo-vid?”

Feeling a bit silly, hands shoved in her jeans pockets, Rose addressed thin air. “Uh…nothing…thanks,” she said, in a carrying voice. She darted a glance toward Eris.

The medic, however, saw nothing odd about her behavior. She told the computer to give them, “Lights, up by half. And classical piano, low.”

Rachmaninoff started playing softly, reminding Rose of her dentist’s office back on Earth. The recessed lighting glowed brighter, casting deeper shadows under the bunk and desk. The room seemed impossibly small for two people. It had only four pieces of furniture: a bed, a desk and two swiveling chairs. All of the furniture was bolted to the wall or floor. There was also a built in wardrobe, empty except for a space suit. Rose pushed the opaque plastic door of the wardrobe open and tugged at the sleeve of the suit.

“The Doctor went to borrow one of these,” she said.

“He’ll need one,” Eris said. “You should always be close to your suit in case there's...” Her sentence trailed away as her eyes glazed over with melancholy.

'In case there's a breech,' Rose thought but she didn’t say anything. Words seemed inadequate. 

Shivering, Eris scrubbed a hand up and down one arm. She cased the room as if in search of a clue why she'd come. Her restlessly gaze fixed on Rose. She seemed to recall herself. Swallowing hard, she blinked away the beginnings of tears and continued in a brittle tone. “You can probably use that suit while you’re here," she said, bobbing her chin toward it. "It belonged to the Captain. It'll be a little long on you but otherwise a good fit. As for the rest of your needs. Check with the supply clerk. You can put in an order for clothing with the laundry. There’s nothing new around here. Nothing high fashion – just knickers, jeans and tees – but we have a good recycling system.” Turning away from Rose, she rolled the utility belt open on the desktop and began fiddling with her portable instruments, tugging them free of snaps and loops, checking gauges and dials. “Right. We’re going to do this the old-fashioned way. When was the date of your last physical?”

“I don’t remember. At the hospital, I guess…so…a few months.”

“And the date of your last menses?”

“Oh…I…ah…I kind of lose count. One day blends into the next…”

Eris looked over her shoulder in surprise. “Don’t you have a bioclock?”

“Clocks don’t work properly in the TARD…our ship. But maybe. What’s it look like?”

“Here. I've got one.” She teased a credit-card-sized piece of plastic out of a pocket on her utility belt. Tilting the card, she let Rose see a digital readout on its surface. “It’s the best way of tracking your hormonal cycles in space. I’ll set you up with one. But ballpark for me. A week? Two weeks? A few days?”

“At least two weeks. Maybe longer.”

Eris nodded and punched some buttons on one of her instrument. It looked like a heavy-duty torch, the kind you keep in the boot of your car in case you breakdown on the highway. It had a long handgrip and a flared head. The head housed a tiny computer monitor instead of a light bulb. The monitor’s screen cast a blue-white glow over Eris’ face as she peered into it.

“Okay,” she said, after a few further adjustments to switches and knobs, “Calibrated. We’re ready. I’m going to need you to lie down on the bunk and relax.” Nodding, Rose slipped out of her jacket, draping it over a chair back. She’d unzipped her jeans and, with her thumbs hooked over the waistband, was about to shimmy out of them when Eris happened to look up. “What in the name of the First Archive are you doing?” she exclaimed in a startled tone.

Rose froze in mid-shimmy. The air felt unusually chilly on her back as she met Eris’ eye and saw the dismay reflected there. “Getting undressed?” she said, in a small voice. “For the examination?”

The medic’s shocked expression dissolved into one of barely suppressed amusement. “I said old-fashioned,” she managed to say between hiccough-like snickers. “Not Pre-Burn. How backward do you think we are?” She brandished her torch-like instrument. “I have a sonic scope. I can still see what I’m doing. No need to…what?” Her smirk widened to a full grin as she shook her head. “Poke around?”

“Oh…right,” Rose said, quickly closing and securing her jeans. “Sorry. I…don’t have much experience with this sort of thing.” 

“What planet are you from, anyway? Somewhere on the frontier?”

“I’m…yeah, a bit out of touch.” Shoulders hunched, chin lowered, Rose went to the bed and sat on the end of it. Then, taking a deep breath she laid back, knees bent, feet still firmly planted on the floor.

Sensing her embarrassment, Eris slipped into a comfortable bedside manner. “There’s nothing to worry about. I’ve done dozens of field exams. I’ll need you to scoot up, lie flat.” Rose squirmed and pushed until her feet were on the bed. But she had a hard time letting go of her tension. Her knees were flexed, her fists clenched. She wished she had some idea what was coming. “Contracting your muscles blurs the image,” Eris told her. “Just try to relax.” She pointed the shaft of the sonic scope at Rose’s navel. “Close your eyes and take a few deep, slow breaths.” Rose did as she was told. “So, I gather your companion isn’t a medical doctor, then?” Eris said, making conversation. 

“Well...he's...” Rose began just as the sonic scope thrummed into life. She flinched when it sent the first of several vibrating pulse through her abdomen. It didn’t hurt but the pulses were alarmingly intense. Opening her eyes, she lifted her head to look down at her stomach, as she muttered, “He doesn’t know much about babies. How to make them...but...”

The strong thrumming of the scope caused her breath to hitch on every inhale and her voice came out in vibrato. She squeezed her eyes closed and tried to ignore the penetrating throb. Unfortunately, the gentle pulsation low in her belly reminded her forcefully of the Doctor’s lovemaking. An exquisite yearning bloomed behind the memory. The vibration teasing her core sent her mind down a path of erotic fantasy. She could almost feel the Doctor’s arms around her. Her nipples hardened, aching in the slight chill of the room as she conjured the sensation of his body stretched out next to hers on this narrow bunk. The thought of his bare skin sliding along her back inspired a delicious shivering. Her thigh muscles clenched instinctively in response. His teeth would nip at her throat, when she murmured sweet encouragements. His tongue would lap and lick as he snuggled closer, fully embracing her. 

She would probably never come home and find him reading or sleeping. He would always roam. But just as he had in the TARDIS, some time in the night he would visit, slipping into bed beside her. There was no way they would be able to avoid one another in this tiny room. Their mutual hunger would be an immediate concern, not easily deferred. Rose craved the level of complete satisfaction only her Doctor could give her. She longed for more than the companionable hugs she’d been getting. 

She needed the sharp sting of his arousal, the ephemeral pain of it like a hundred nettles jabbing her. in seconds she'd be drunk on love. The floating euphoria of true union would settle over her, quickly countering any discomfort, and she would know him. His mind. His mouth. His hands. The licking tongues of his orchid-like member. Like the sonic scope, it would vibrate against her, through her, deep in her veins, in her bones, and she would come. Wrapped around him, bucking under him, she would come so very hard.

“This will sting a little,” Eris said, following the warning with a needle prick that snapped Rose back to reality. 

“Ow!” 

“Sorry about that. Just need a little blood to set your hormonal clock. Now, it should tell you where you are in your cycle and how many cycles you've had since setting it.” She glanced at the display. “Looks like your instincts are good. You’re ovulating. Do you want me to give you a shot of Contracol?”

Guessing this was a contraceptive, Rose declined, “No, we’ve got something.”

“Okay, then.” She handed Rose the bioclock. “That’s it. We’re done. You’re fine. Perfect, actually. I would never have guessed you’d been pregnant.”

“I was,” Rose insisted. It was hard enough losing Susan like that. She didn’t want to deny the memory of her, too.

“Yes, of course, I can tell by your readings but your uterus is remarkably clean. No sign of scarring. You must have had a fantastic surgeon.” 

“I suppose,” Rose sighed. She sat up, swinging her feet to the floor. “I wish…” she began but couldn’t go on. The loss was too recent to consider for long.

“Are you going to try again?”

“I don’t know. It’s…complicated.”

Eris sank into the desk chair, swiveling it sideways so she faced Rose across the chair back. “Anything you want to talk about?”

Rose wasn't sure she was ready to talk about Susan. And she didn't want to burden Eris in her grief. But Eris seemed genuinely interested, reaching out to squeeze Rose’s hand where it rested on her knee. Rose studied their clasped fingers. Eris was forty, the same age as Jackie Tyler but she didn't seem mum-ish. She had a more sophisticated awareness. Maybe she was the perfect person to tell. 

Drawing in a deep breath, Rose said, “I didn't want the baby. I don't want children, really. They're more trouble than they're worth. My mum always goes on about how I’ll feel different someday. How I'll meet a special man. Not the Doctor, of course, someone else. And then I'll want kids. Gran’kids for her. Every time I go home. Whenever I see her, she has this expectant look. Like maybe this time I’m staying. Maybe I'm going to settle down and be…normal.”

“But you won’t…ever?” Eris said, in a let-me-guess tone.

“No. I don’t belong there anymore. I belong with him. And…” Tears glazed Rose’s eyes. She pressed a knuckle to her upper lip, hoping to stave off a sob but failed. Her voice broke as she said, “I love him. My Doctor. He changed my life. Changed me. I don’t think I could ever leave him.”

“But that’s good, isn’t it?” Rose nodded but couldn't meet her eye. Her lowered gaze prompted Eris to ask, “He loves you, right?”

“I…yes…I think so,” Rose managed to say between shaky sniffles. She looked around for something to blow her nose on and found nothing. “But if you knew him...he loves everyone. There were other women. Lots of them before me. They traveled with him.”

“And you’re jealous?”

“No,” Rose shook her head as she gratefully accept the fistful of tissues Eris drew from her smock pocket. “I used to be. But now, no…I think what we have is different. It goes deeper for him, too. But...” She stared into the other woman's eyes for a moment before continuing, “I don’t know what I really mean to him. If it's love or... He doesn’t have emotions like we do…not regular human ones. I don’t think he understands them. But he’s said things…made me feel he wants me, needs me with him. No, it’s more than that. It’s like love…but it could be just…biology.” She sighed. “He wanted us to have a baby.”

“And you didn’t.”

“I don’t know,” Rose sighed. “It all happened so fast. We were just having fun. And then before I could even accept that I was pregnant, it was over. Susan was gone. Out of my life before I even knew her.”

“You had a name picked out?”

Realizing she couldn't explain, Rose waved a vague hand. “It wouldn’t have been…normal.” She laughed, seeing the irony in that word. “His people don’t keep their children with them. They farm them out.”

“What is he? The son of some kind of noble family? I’ve heard there’s a resurgence of feudalism in the Rim planets.”

“No…or, well…yeah, I guess he is nobility, of a sort. But mostly I mean alien.”

“Alien?” Eris practically spit the word. Her brows dipped into a glower as she leaned forward with some fierce intent and demanded, “Are you saying he’s not…not…human?”

Rose wanted to ask what was wrong but the sudden switch in the medic's previously harmonious attitude alerted her to some vital social undercurrent. Rose sensed she should know what was wrong with being alien. The Ood were slaves, but maybe there were other less friendly aliens around. Traveling with the Doctor had taught her never to assume to know another culture's prejudices. All color had drained from Eris' face. Judging by her expression, Rose had gone from a trusted confidant to a suspicious intruder in a split second. She tried to repair the damage.

“Well, of course, he’s human,” she said with as carefree a laugh as she could manage. “I mean, what else could he be? He’s not an Ood.”

Eris remained sober, definitely not amused. One hand hovering over her wristcom, she narrowed her eyes, studying Rose intently. Rose tried to look harmless. After a tense few seconds, Eris cut a glance toward one of her instruments. She picked it up and, using her thumb, paged back through the stored data. 

“Everyone knows there are alien infiltrators,” she said “We've had contact with several. I was on the Mary Magdalene.” Rose gave a modest nod, careful not to commit but acting as if she had some idea what this meant. Eris pushed up the sleeve of her smock to reveal an elaborate tattoo of an exploding ship. “One of only sixteen survivors. People back on Earth don't know the half of what happened. The Ood are harmless. Because they look like aliens. The ones you need to watch out for are the ones that look human. The more human an alien appears the more dangerous it is.” She checked her instruments again. “You seem very human.”

“Because I am,” Rose said, lightly. “And so is the Doctor. What I meant was...he’s just…sort of…alien to me. You know, like that old saying, men are from Mars?”

“He’s from Mars?” Eris frowned. “The Jesuit colony? Well, no wonder he doesn't know anything about gynecology.” 

“No, it's...it’s just an expression,” Rose explained. “Back on Earth we sometimes say Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Different worlds, yeah? I’m from Earth, London…the Powell Estates. And he's from...like you said...the outer rim.” Alert now to avoid anything overtly alien, Rose covered her bases with a bit of authentic history. “He has a...a sort of...experimental ship. Because he's a bit of a scientist, yeah? A Doctor of science. So when he came to Earth, he picked me up and we started traveling. We explore. He’s traveled most of his life, actually, helping people. I just want to keep up. I don’t want to hold him back or...tie him down.”

“Oh, he’s one of those? Worried about his freedom?”

“No. He doesn’t care about that. It’s the life he leads. He has to keep moving. And he does so much for so many people. He’s…brilliant and charming and powerful and…” Rose dropped her gaze to the floor and chewed her lower lip to stop it trembling. This heartfelt confessing was wearing on her. “And when I’m with him I forget I’m Rose Tyler without her A-levels. I'm a better person, you know?”

Eris sighed out a single syllable, “Yeah.”

“Anyway, I know my mum is expecting me to just…give up…get over him. Go back to the shop, meet a nice man and make babies. And sometimes I think the Doctor is expecting that, too.”

“Wait? Are you saying…? He wants you to leave?”

“No,” Rose gave a sharp negative jerk of her head. “No, he doesn’t. I don’t mean that…but it’s like he…expects me to fail him, somehow. Like he can’t make himself believe in me.”

“And you can’t tell him how you feel,” Eris surmised. 

“Right. I want to but...it’s…it’s…just too much, I think. And look at me, crying. Like I’m unhappy and I’m not….” She scrubbed the heel of one hand under each eye, wiping away tears. “I'm really not. But this is why I can’t talk about it. I get choked up and start blubbering every time.”

“You think he won't understand?”

“My mum wouldn't. She'd try to fix it, tell me things will get better when I find a husband. That I'm just going through a phase, some childish infatuation. The Doctor would just get upset, think I wanted something more from him.”

“Well, for what it’s worth,” Eris said, returning to her friendly ways and giving Rose’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “I think you should talk about it anyway. Before you get pregnant again. I know, now, how wrong I was not to talk to Scooti when I had the chance.” She stood, releasing her grip on Rose, and started reholstering her instruments. “You should tell him exactly what you want from life and him. You need to believe in him, too.”

As Eris headed for the door, Rose sat with her head lowered, thinking about what she wanted from her relationship with the Doctor. She needed to tell him, show him, how serious she was. She started repeating Eris' advice to herself, like a mantra. ‘I believe in him. I believe in him,’ She kept at it until she saw him again.

Standing with her hands jammed deep in her pockets, watching the Doctor talk to Zack , Rose realized she’d been phrasing her mantra wrong.

“I believe in us,” she whispered.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“It’s ages since I wore one of these,” the Doctor announced, beaming. 

Rose tugged the front of his borrowed spacesuit and told him she wanted it back in one piece.

“Yes, sir,” he replied as if tempted to salute, not quite comfortable with her fretting.

She’d come to see him off. People didn’t do that as a rule. See him off. He’d never known anyone to stand on the docks and wave before this. He usually left quickly and without lamentation, truth-be-told, frequently pursued by hurtled missiles. If parting from friends, he preferred to offer the briefest of pleasantries: “See you soon. Take care. Have a nice life.” Certainly he liked to leave quietly, without a lot of fuss. 

Rose seemed poised to fuss this time. He cut into her soliloquy on the dangers of space travel, offering a brisk, “I’ll see you later.”

Ducking her chin, she flashed a devilish grin and said, “Not if I see you first.”

Then, to his astonishment, she kissed him. Well, kissed his faceplate. Still, it made his ears tingle and, in spite of his best intentions, he smiled. Her sweet gesture ignited an ember of longing in his chest. A flush of warmth prickled down his body. Suddenly, he didn't want to leave her. He wanted to find that room they'd been promised and spend the next few hours tracing her features with his fingertips.

This was why they didn’t kiss in public. He’d set the ground rules on public affection from the very beginning. Hugging, yes. Hand holding, when appropriate. Kissing, absolutely not. Kissing led to…more kissing, generally. And then, quite soon to arousal and he truly had very little self-control when it came to Rose’s mouth. One pass of her tongue over his was enough to hollow him out at the core. One intoxicating sip from her lips led to another and another. He had an almost insatiable thirst for her. Fine mess they’d be in if she kissed him in the middle of some public square and he took her then and there. Certainly, there were places in the universe, Barcelona for example, where such behavior went unnoticed. But on most worlds public fornication caused a stir. Crowds gathered.

But wasn’t that what people did before setting off on a perilous journey? Wasn't that a stock scene in all of those old war movies, kissing your lover good-bye? Didn’t nature demand you take one last stab at seeding the universe with your genetic potential? Appalled and a little bit emotionally flooded by this line of thought, he closed the door on it and headed into the descent pod. He really shouldn’t be thinking about fornication at a time like this. Despite the fascinating arrangement of zippers on Rose's jacket calling to him, teasing his imagination and tempting his fingers, serious business was afoot. Ida and Zack were depending on him. Something lurked at the heart of this world. He was sure of it. Something malevolent waited. And there was a slim possibility his TARDIS was somewhere down there. But still, he didn't want to go.

He didn't want to leave Rose. A sense of menace lurked in the reprocessed air. It brought out a protective, masculine side of him he was seldom aware existed. A stirring of his short hairs, a lift of his hackles, warned him he might never see Rose again. But that was impossible. He was a Time Lord. He could see around corners, judge the path before him. There was no fork in the road where Rose was lost to him. He'd long ago learned to trust his temporal instincts about the future. No matter how frighteningly illogical his present actions might seem they always led to the right outcome. When his view of the path told him to swerve, he did. He knew going down into the bowels of this planet would somehow bring him and Rose safely through whatever was coming. But the urge to converge was definitely affecting his judgment. He couldn't shake his mounting dread.

As he waited for Ida Scott, his biological clock kept chiming off the minutes, counting them as lost. Time to act, don't let go, biology told him. But that wasn't who he was, not really. He wasn't a domestic drone. If he was right and Rassilon was wrong then he could be a Time Lord and experience true union. He could retain his objectivity, do his job, despite his connection to Rose. If he was right and it had been a mistake to isolate Gallifrey, then his union with Rose should make them both stronger. 

Ida came aboard and Mr. Jefferson closed the door behind her. The Doctor couldn't tear his eyes from Rose. As he stared at her through the door's window, she withdrew one hand from a pocket and, smiling fondly, twiddled her fingers at him. The ember inside his chest flared into a sun-bright bonfire. His confidence returned in a rush. Rose would be waiting. Nothing would part them. Nothing could. 

A grin tugged away the tension in his cheeks as he returned her little wave in kind. They maintained eye contact as the pod dropped. It passed into a dark tunnel, shuddering as it picked up speed. Leaving Rose and even the light from her level behind, he and Ida rocketed down the drill shaft. Faster and faster. They were almost free falling when Zack announced they'd gone beyond the oxygen field. The Doctor checked his air mix just before Rose chimed in with a reminder to keep breathing. Amused, the Doctor felt his mouth twist up at the corners when a frustrated Zack told Rose to stay off the com. She dismissed the suggestion out of hand. 

She meant to stay on the line with him. The realization centered him, made him that much more determined to return with his TARDIS. He must protect Rose at all costs. There were truths he hadn’t shared with her, as yet. Things he needed to tell her. More about the war, his other loves, his children, and even his first meeting with her. He’d been a dad once. And married, too, a long time ago. 

He wasn't sure Rose would understand the marriage. She sometimes forgot about the length of his life. Nine hundred years was a very long time. He'd married for a multitude of reasons. But mostly because he’d never been married before and he’d been enchanted…by the woman and by the idea of a spiritual bond. Looking back, now, he knew he'd been seeking what he had with Rose for a very long time. 

Marriage, a pledge of devotion, eluded his people, biologically as well as culturally. In the Dark Times before Rassilon life-mates were arranged by biological imperatives. Gallifreyan physiology, quite literally, left them no choice in the matter of true union. In his youth, the Doctor had been in harmony with the rest of his people in thinking blind biological devotion a blasphemy. True union seemed a primitive hold-over, rightly and wholly rejected by thinking beings.

But marriage was another matter entirely. Free of Gallifreyan restraint, he’d celebrated the ideal of choice, just as Susan had, by marrying. And just as Susan had, he’d quickly regretted the youthful impulse. Within a few short years of his wedding, he stopped associating the experience of marriage with choice or delight. Marriage he learned, to his sorrow, was about restraint, rules and proper behavior. He came to loathe it. And he didn’t think he would enter into the velvet trap again. Not even for Rose.

But then, Rose wouldn’t ask it of him. He knew this. Just as he knew he would share everything with her in time. All that he was, the warp and weft of him, would unravel into a single skein. He’d lay the strand of himself in her hands. This is who I am, he’d say and she wouldn’t flinch from it because he was hers to reweave. She would make him into something new.

Already she had changed him. He’d relearned what his people had forgotten. True union was natural and delightfully invigorating. It need not overrule the mind or undermine the spirit. It demanded no promises or pledges, no oaths or vows. It had no rules or writs. True union simply was. Like breathing was. Like cellular osmosis it happened without any direction. You cherished your breath, without ever promising it anything. 

They reached point zero, he and Ida, and stepped out into blackness. His senses strained to pick out detail in the surroundings. He used neither eyes nor ears but his temporal senses. They brought him indications of workmanship and decay. Evidence of great age and great wisdom assaulted him. An echoing in his spatial equilibrium led him to believe they were standing in a massive cavern. Ida lit a gravity globe, tossing it into the air. It flared like a pocket-sized sun, giving them vision. The Doctor's mouth dropped open. Ida spoke with wonder. She was appropriately moved but the Doctor couldn't help wishing Rose were the one beside him. She would adore seeing this. 

Needing to share, he called to her in a melodic voice, “Rose? You can tell Toby we found his civilization.”

“Hey, Toby...” He heard her say with evident delight as she passed along his message.

Ida crunched away, moving purposefully across the rough ground. The Doctor ran a bit to catch up and they strode along with him trailing her as he gawked. He couldn't seem to take it all in. The massive cliff city astounded him. He'd never seen anything like it, though he supposed King Solomon's Mines came close. He looked forward to exploring every nook. There were bridges far overhead and great carved columns at the portals of doors close at hand. Carved beasts glowered down at them as he chided Ida for saying 'there's no turning back.' She really should have known better but she found his irritation taxing. He let it go, motioning her to proceed.

As they approached the power source, a puzzling conversation taking place on their intercoms distracted him from his own observations.

Danny expressed some concern about the Ood. They were staring at him and their telepathic field registered basic 100. 'Brain dead,' the Doctor thought, 'and yet, not.' He privately agreed with Danny. That was creepy. Were the oddly altered Ood dangerous? Could they become dangerous?

“Everything all right up there?” he asked and received a chorus of unconvincing reassurances. 

Rose's, “Yeah” sounded particularly strained. 

The Doctor fought the urge to turn back, to go to her. It felt like a rushing stream behind his knees. But, ahead of him, in the ground was a massive metal...shield or lid or.... 

“I've got a nasty feeling the word might be trapdoor,” he said, announcing their find. “Never met a trapdoor I liked.”

They always reminded him of lurking spiders. This one was no exception. He could sense something malevolent and close at hand. If the trapdoor snapped open would he fall into a sticky web, be trapped for all time? What about Rose? Would she be safe up there without him? Surrounded by strangers and odd Ood? He told them about the writing that defied translation and heard Zack ask Toby for help. A garble of voices on the com was followed by Mr. Jefferson ordering someone to “stand down.” A burst of static told him something had gone wrong ten miles up.

“What is it? What's he done?” he called, panic making his tone harsh. “Rose? What's going on?”

Rose didn't respond as far as he could tell but Zack's voice came to him clearly. “Report. Report. Jefferson, Report.”

“Rose? What is it? Rose?” No answer. The rushing stream of anxiety pushing on his knees, against his spine, threatened to overwhelm him. “I'm going back up,” he told Ida, striding away before she could think to voice a protest. As he stalked along, a booming alien voice spoke as if from the airless cavern itself.

“I will walk in the light. My legions will swarm across worlds...”

“Oh, someone's taking his press releases to heart,” the Doctor muttered a second before the ground began to pitch and shudder under him. 

He cast a desperate look at the pod as Ida called to him for help. It would be too dangerous to try to get back to the surface in the middle of an earthquake in any case. Turning around, he headed toward Ida who was dodging a hailstorm of boulders. He reached for her arm, hoping to steer her toward shelter but beyond her the trapdoor was opening. It fragmented into pie-sections, each slice retreating into hidden recesses in the chasm wall until there was nothing left of the seal but the decorated rim.

“The pit is open and I am free,” the beast roared as the Doctor and Ida peered over the rim into an apparently bottomless shaft.

'Now, there's an invitation to disaster if ever I saw one,' the Doctor thought but still, as the earth quieted, he stayed and considered it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

From the moment Toby first began channeling 'the Beast' until she pulled the trigger on a bolt gun and sent him hurling toward the black sun, Rose Tyler operated on pure instinct. She seemed to be mainlining adrenaline. Casting herself in the Doctor's place, she did what he would do. She planned and executed an escape. Kept people moving, kept as many of them alive as she could. With no time to think about her own losses and fears, she focused admirably. Men with military training and years of deep space experience followed her orders. She organized them to outflank and then defeat the enemy.

Only when it came to leaving did she balk. She couldn't leave the Doctor all alone. He might well be dead. Ida and Zack seemed sure of it. But they didn't know him. Not like she did. She knew he could come back from a fall, cheat death at its own door. He would return to her if he could, if it were remotely possible. She had to believe in that slim possibility because the shriveled icy lump of her heart barely had the strength to keep beating after Ida announced his loss. If it wasn't possible for him to return, if he was truly gone, how could she go on? She couldn't. 

But Zack gave her no choice. He captured her. Drugged her. Saved her. But not for long. As the rocket lifted toward space, something went wrong. Zack announced the collapse of the gravity funnel. The rocket lurched. The Doctor's planetary tomb broke orbit, heading for the black hole. Rose held on to her seat as gravity's teeth seized the rocket, worried and shook it. Toby raved and changed and from somewhere deep inside she found the courage to send him to hell. Her bolt shattered the rocket's protective glass, forcing Zack to raise the emergency shields. The shields protected them from frigid suffocation, but the rocket kept on falling. Nothing could break gravity's death grip.

“But we stopped him,” Rose said. “That's what the Doctor would have done.”

“Some victory,” Zack said, “We're going in.”

Numbed by her own heartache, drained by the fight, Rose couldn't even summon sorrow for the others. Her life was over in any case. At least she and the Doctor would be together. She could rest beside him in the belly of the black sun, forever. Too empty to mourn or weep, she simply watched out her porthole window as the impossible planet vanished, comforted only by the knowledge that this unbearable grieving would be brief. 

“I'm sorry,” Danny told her, his expression one of complete sincerity.

Rose didn't acknowledge him. She closed her eyes and waited for the end. 

'I believe in us,' she thought, knowing it would be her last thought in this life and wanting it to resonate in eternity. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“If I believe in one thing...just one...I believe in her,” the Doctor told the immortal remains of the Beast. 

He hoped the mind of the great lump, wherever it was, heard him because it took every ounce of faith he possessed to pick up the stone again and bring it smashing down, shattering those urn-like locks to bits. He didn't allow himself to think about consequences, about sending this planet and the rocket carrying Rose to certain doom. Not until the act was done. Rose would be with him in this. He knew she would.

“This is your freedom,” he crowed, taunting the Beast. “Free to die.”

And then he laughed. He felt liberated. No more resisting what he shared with Rose. Maybe they had only seconds to live but their commitment to each other would be absolute. No stifling, archaic belief systems would restrain them. Rassilon's Beliefs. Rassilon's Oath and Vows. The Creed of Rassilon. The Staff and the Robe and the Cornet of Rassilon. The ruddy Tea Cozy of Rassilon. All of it meaningless. All of it gone now, burned away, as the Beast was burning. Logically, the Doctor knew he was lost, too. There was no hope of survival. All he had to hold onto was the slender thread of his true union. But he believed Rose would do something. Something clever...something unexpected. Just like this. Just like he had.

Or they would die together. He could feel the world ending. The planet quaked in its death throes. Before him, the Beast thrashed and fell. Its taut chains sang under the strain. One of them snapped, lashing the walls. Huge hunks of rock broke free, slamming down with crushing force. The Doctor stumbled back. A hiss of steam released from the planet's molten core, sent him flying. He crashed into something solid, a wall. Looking up, he saw the bright blue exterior of his beloved ship. 

Ha! Vindication!

Thankful to have transferred his key to a zippered pocket in his spacesuit, he wrenched open the outer door and raced up the ramp toward the console. There wasn't much time, even for a time machine. He calculated his remaining seconds and set coordinates to materialize around Ida. They could scoop her up on the fly but there was no way to rescue the Ood. Rose only had a few moments left. He used their psychic connection to triangulate her position and materialized near her. The TARDIS caught the rocket in a temporal tractor beam, snaring it a heartbeat away from an inevitable singularity. Once the rocket was in tow, the Doctor took a brief time out to steady his nerves as he offset the pull of gravity with the greater pull of eternity. Even black holes collapsed into irrelevance eventually. He simply looped the rocket back to a time when there was no sun in this part of the heavens. But he couldn't rest easy. Despite his people having invented black holes as a tool for time travel the Doctor knew better than to cross them, just like Oppenheimer knew better than to picnic in an atomic blast zone. He wouldn't breathe an unburdened breath until Rose was safely back on the TARDIS.

“Sorry about the hijack, Captain,” he said into the comlink he'd programmed to patch into Zack's ship. “This is the good ship TARDIS. Now, first things first, have you got a Rose Tyler on board?” 

“I'm here. It's me,” she yelped gleefully and then he heard her mutter, “Oh, my God.”

He blushed. He really needed to speak to her again about calling him that. Even during sex it embarrassed him. It was almost as bad as 'baby.' But then again, maybe she really was calling on her personal deity. Maybe she was praying. Or giving thanks. Did she feel as thankful hearing his voice as he did hearing hers? He arranged a swap for her, happy to be able to give Zack the good news about Ida. 

As soon as the rocket cleared the gravitational pull of the black hole, the TARDIS materialized in the ship's cargo hold. The Doctor carried Ida outside, gently placing her on a pile of blankets. He checked her vital signs but didn't linger over her. Instead, he went back to the console to announce his presence. Within minutes, Rose pushed the outer door open. They stared at one another as time slowed to a standstill. And then they both grinned and rushed forward.

As she reached the top of the ramp, he caught her in his arms, lifting her from her feet. He didn’t twirl her but simply pressed her tight against him. She groaned in satisfaction, breathing him in, and then sighed in delight. Clinging to him, burbling happily, she buried her face in the curve of his throat. He squeezed her and swung her back and forth as he hummed with pleasure. Oh, it felt good to hold her. It felt like coming home.

Since neither of them were able to let go, he guided her down his body until her feet hit floor. She found his mouth with hers as her fingers started unsnapping his collar, tugging at his zippers. Taking the hint, he broke the seal on his gloves and, wrenching out of the kiss, used his teeth to yank them off. His bare hands found her hair, combed through it again and again. He tilted her head back until their mouths met once more. She seized the nape of his neck with one hand, even as her other hand burrowed through layers of protective clothing to tug his shirt free of his suit trouser. 

Between deep, wet kisses, he made a series of extravagant promises. “I’ll buy you a house...if you want. Or a boat. Or a starship. Tell me what you'd like. We’ll find a planet somewhere. Rest. Start a family.” Feeling her tense, he smoothly shifted gears. “Or not. There's no rush. I can get a job. As…a…a what?” He'd managed to find his way under her shirt and jacket. His short nails grazed her back. “A politician? Mad scientist? Clerk? Teacher or…no, I really wasn’t very good at that, was I? I know, a postman.” When the idea took hold, he let a bit of light squeeze between them as he searched her face for some sign of approval. “I’ve always wanted to be a postman," he confided with boyish glee. "You get to deliver packages and love letters and relief checks.”

“And bills,” Rose murmured into another kiss. Feeling so weightless the ship might as well have dematerialized beneath her, she leaned back in his arms and gazed up at him. She couldn’t help smiling over his enthusiasm even as she argued with it. “And foreclosure notices.” 

“I'll drop those down the sewer gratings," he said, before returning to his original line of thought. Pulling out of the next kiss, he met her eye in serious inquiry. "Don't you want anything? A rose-covered cottage?"

“Can we make love?” she asked, suddenly needing him desperately.

His face lit up. “Oh, yes,” he growled softly, redoubling his efforts to remove his spacesuit. Efforts hampered by his inability to stop kissing her.

Without breaking all contact with her mouth, he managed to wrestle free of yards of orange fabric and his weighted boots. Stripped to his brown suit and bare feet, he swung Rose toward the console and bent her backward over it while simultaneously gliding a hand around her bottom and along her outer thigh. One arm around her waist, the other under her knee, he lifted her up, settling her in a bare spot among the controls. Rose moaned as he licked her throat, nuzzled her ear. But she dipped her shoulder and, laughing, rolled under his arm. He tried to contain her but she had more leverage and gravity on her side. She flowed around him, shimmying downward until her feet found the floor. Ducking out of his embrace, she spun away, panting. One hand to her chest and the other up like a traffic cop stopping vehicles, she held him at bay for a moment while she caught her breath.

“Not...right...this minute,” she gasped.

“Oh,” he said, crestfallen. Sheepishly scratching an ear, he looked away and repeated himself, “Oh. Yes. Of course, I didn't mean to...rush you. I just thought...but...no..." he took a deep breath and released it, "you need a little time to...adjust...to...uhm...”

She beamed at him, skating forward to take his face between her palms and kiss him soundly. When their lips smacked apart, she said, “No. It's not that. I don't need any more time. I just thought...maybe...” She caressed him, stroking his cheek with one hand, while skimming her other down his arm until she could intertwine their fingers. “Could we go somewhere? Somewhere...special?”

His eyes crossed a little as he focused on hers. “Right,” he said on a shaky inhale, “Special. Yes. Certainly. Sure. No black holes or...Beasts...no trouble brewing.” He bobbled his head a few times, and then glanced at the console. A slow smile transformed his bemused visage. “I know just the place.”

“And maybe we should say goodbye to the others.”

He was already setting coordinates. “Others? Oh, Zack...and Ida...and,” Rose stared at him with an infuriating smugness, knowing he'd forgotten the rest of the crew names. Finally, he cut his eyes sideways to avoid her glare and squeaked, “And the...others.”

“Danny,” she prompted, nudging him cheekily, but her smile faded when she added, “Mr. Jefferson didn't make it. Neither did Eris. Or Toby.”

“But we did,” the Doctor reminded her, giving her waist a final squeeze before turning his attention to pilot and navigation duty. As he toggled the comlink to raise Zack, he softly remarked, “We made it.”

 

END THIS PART


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor sticks is foot in it a bit on the way to smutty fun times with Rose. But they finally make it to Barcelona. This chapter takes place just after the events in The Satan Pit.

“So, where are we going?” Rose asked, once they were underway. 

Bracing the heels of her palms on the lip of the console, she leaned forward, taking her weight onto elbow-locked arms. The guilelessly seductive pose combined with her proximity distracted the Doctor from his piloting duties. Mouth slightly agape he darted what he intended to be a swift glance in her general direction and found himself transfixed. Her hair, still fluffed by his roaming fingers, formed an amber-hued frame around her face. The TARDIS seemed determined to suffuse her skin with golden light. In the pulsing ambience of the time rotor, Rose glowed almost as brightly as she had when embodying the Vortex. 

If she was amber, he was the hapless fly she’d captured. He had no idea how she'd managed to enchant him like this but he no longer fought it. Tilting his head, he lowered his chin slightly to stare down into her adoring eyes. She had a way of looking at him as if he could do no wrong. Consequentially, he tried very hard to do right. Her shoulder bumped warmly against his. She loved him. It was painfully obvious. He inhaled sharply against the pain, drawing and holding the breath as raw emotion sent a hot arrow zinging through his chest. The ethereal pang hampered his ability to think clearly but he managed to croak out an off-hand answer to her question.

“Barcelona,” he announced, tossing his head like a horse on a tight rein. His eyes flashed, showing too much white as he tried to hold firm against love’s gravitational pull.

He needn’t have struggled. The love-light died in Rose's eyes as soon as he gave his answer. She groaned, theatrically, and cast her gaze heavenward. Her face fell into disappointed lines. “Oh, not again,” she exclaimed, propelling away from the console and him. Whirling about, she slumped over to their two-person chair and began softly bashing her forehead against the seat back.

“I know what you're thinking,” he said in a breathless rush, “But it'll be different this time, I promise.”

Rose paused in her head banging and pillowed her forehead on her folded arms. After a moment, she cut her gaze sideways to study him. “That's what you said the last time. You remember last time, right? I ended up in prison.”

“Prison?” the Doctor objected, his voice rising in pitch as his countenance turned stormy. He couldn't believe she’d used the term. His nose wrinkled and his upper lip sneered. “That wasn't prison. Someday,” he went on, nodding authoritatively, “Someday, I'll tell you about prison. You were in a very nice city jail. And only overnight. They served you breakfast.”

“Stale bread, a runny blue egg and lumpy cocoa. How romantic.”

“It was an adventure,” he said, wounded. “We made new friends. And I thought bailing you out was very romantic.”

“You sang a song,” Rose purred, delighted with him despite her sense of foreboding. “Under my cell window.”

“One I wrote especially for you,” he murmured, leaning toward her before recalling himself and going on with his chiding, “I could have performed something by Gwen Stefani and no one the wiser. But I composed an original melody,” turning quite pious he finished, “as required by law.”

Rose flashed him the tip of her tongue at the corner of her smile. “And you even brought your own musician.”

“Tyrndyn’s One-man Band. I found him in pub. Interesting custom that…singing for your freedom…” he rubbed a hand along the back of his neck. “First time I'd ever run across it. I’ve heard of singing for your supper before but…” he shook his head, “Well…no matter…the point is, I sang. Therefore. Ergo. It was romantic.”

“Are those the rules?”

“I believe they are,” he said. Then, he sniffed and focused on the controls before him as if they had suddenly become quite fascinating.

“It was lovely,” Rose assured him, passing her words through a gaping grin and giving ‘lovely’ a few extra syllables as she let it melt in her mouth. 

He glanced up, shyly returning her smile, but not in kind. His lips remained anchored down at the corners but his eyes sparkled merrily. Fixated on the notion of kissing him, Rose skipped closer. He nudged her shoulder with his, happy she'd given up on sulking. “You know I'd had the melody in my head for ages, really.” He hummed a bit of it. “Ever since the regeneration, I think. I woke up to it. Catchy tune. And I was rather please with that line about following my star.”

“You wished today was just like every other day,” she reminded him. “Because 'today’s the best day, everything you ever dreamed’ Honestly? With me in prison? Rather insensitive that.”

“I was speaking figuratively,” the Doctor cried, bristling with indignation. He tried to glare at her but his restless gaze dipped under hers and skittered away. “Days...in general...with you...I meant.” He bobbed his head repeatedly. “Whenever we're together.” Finding no flaw in this explanation, he darted another glance at her. “Best kind of days, don't you see?” 

“If you say so.”

“That's settled then, is it?” He winked and Rose lowered her lashes, as a giddy lightheadedness swept over her. Slightly flushed, she rocked from foot to foot, toying with a stand of her hair, while he bustled about, flipping switches and pressing buttons. He paused to consult their flight log. “Tell you what,” he remarked with studied casualness. “We'll aim for another century this time. One where you haven't a criminal record.”

“Good of you. But how 'bout instead…just this once, I mean…we go to Spain?”

“Spain?” he said, making it sound as offensive as sour milk. “No, I don't like Spain. Spain is...provincial? Ordinary?" He pointed a finger at the tip of her nose. "Boring?”

“Through all of history?” Rose said, doubtfully. “There's never been a good year for Spain?”

She had him there. He scratched behind his ear, wanting to be fair. “Well, maybe every now and again they have a good year. But not like Barcelona. Why see the city when there's a planet?” he insisted. "Barcelona has..."

“Nose-less puppies,” Rose said. “I know. I know. You don't like to be crossed do you? But did you ever think...there must be a reason why we never get there? Karma or something?”

“Don't believe in karma,” he said. “Not generally...as a rule...except...possibly...for the fellow that invented advertising jingles.”

“Every time we head for Barcelona disaster strikes.” She ticked the catastrophes off on her fingertips. “First, you regenerated. Then, you miscalculated the time streams by about a gazillion years so we arrived in the middle of an ice age.”

“It was a glitch, a hiccup...my calculations were dead on....must have hit a wormhole or something. But it was hardly a wasted trip. The panoramic vistas? The calving glaciers? Great herds of migrating Troklopods,” he said in an awed tone. “Extinct for eons. You can’t see that sort of thing on the regular tour.”

“I was wearing a bikini,” Rose countered. “I got eighth degree frostbite.”

“Which I fixed. A dab of Dermagel and all better.”

“And a cold.” 

“You already had a cold. I told you the Troklopods didn’t give you a cold. They didn’t even have noses.” Taking note of Rose’s steely glare, he ducked his chin and mumbled, “Not that it's relevant how you came to have a cold. Couldn’t be good for your shivering like that.”

“Well, you did give me your overcoat,” she said, the memory of his gallantry mollifying her. “Once you knew we'd be staying for a bit.”

“Granted, dropping our lone TARDIS key into a snowdrift probably not my finest moment. But my fingers were a bit numb. Shame you didn't have your key.”

“Bikini,” Rose said, pointedly.

“Right. Yes. Poor planning. This time we will check the weather before nipping out into it.”

“Weren’t we heading for Barcelona when we got called home by Mickey and ended up taking him on board?”

He circled back to her side, his brow wrinkling pensively. “Ah...point taken…yes, that certainly was a disaster.”

“Shut up,” she snorted, lightly slapping his chest with the back of her hand. 

“So we’ve had a few…a very few…minor…inconveniences.”

“A few? What about prison? All that muddle with the space pirates? We finally arrive on Barcelona only to have the police show up five minutes after we land and toss me in jail.”

“Had the worst time convincing the authorities you weren’t a pirate. And you look nothing like a pirate. You don’t even have a peg leg...or an eye patch,” he mused, “or a parrot. I fancied getting a parrot once. Thought I might teach it to swear in Kaled. Or recite the entire what'sit...” he snapped his fingers, and then pointed one at her, “Writ of Rassilon. In a squawky, parroty voice...can you imagine? Shame I didn't think of that when I was President.” Twisting a lever, he paused for breath and casually peered across at her, taking in her air of disappointment. “But...if you'd rather not go… I suppose we could go somewhere else...Spain...even. 2138's not a bad year.”

Rose tipped her head so her hair spilled to one side in a shower of blond strands. Looking around the rotor at him, she knew he yearned to share this new world with her. She’d asked him before what was so special about Barcelona and he’d always replied, ‘You’ll see.’ So far, she hadn't. But in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't so very bad having frostbite or being in jail overnight. Not when he'd sing her free and heal her wounds.

He flipped a few switches in a lackluster manner and her heart melted. “Awww, you really want to go, don't you?”

“Oh, no,” he said, with childish insincerity as he toyed with a sort of cosmic eggbeater on the console. “I'm sure Spain is...nice...sunny and...such.”

It took her all of six seconds to fold under the force of his moping. “But Barcelona is probably loads more romantic?”

A burgeoning smile sent the clouds in his eyes scudding away as he stretched far across the console to squeeze her hand and confide, “Barcelona is honestly, truly, remarkably romantic,” he told her, and then, noticing her right eyebrow lifting, added, “most of the time.” He started bounding about as he went on, “Brilliant night-life. The sunsets. The moonrises. Intimate island communities. Stunning beaches. Magnificent waves. Magnificent views. Rocky pillars rising from the sea. Sun. Sand. Refreshing breezes. Beachfront bars. Steamy motel rooms.”

“Well, then we should definitely give it one more go. What's the worst that could happen?”

He slammed to a halt before her. “Oh, I wish you hadn't said that,” he said, grimacing. “Still, no...I don't believe in karma. Or bad luck or any of that superstitious rot. I promise you, this time no disasters. You won't be sorry.” 

Suddenly galvanized, he darted away, nipping around the console to program the landing sequence. Almost as an after thought, he dashed back to quickly kiss her. Then, he bolted for a knob, turning it in the very nick of time. The whole ship shuddered. Rose seized the edge of the console and held on as they banked steeply left. The rotor burbled, shivering as it rose and fell.

“I was thinking we might settle on a pirate world someday,” the Doctor said, casually, as if they weren’t enduring a plummeting elevator sensation, “Hunt the wild seas. Bury...or no, let's say find some long lost booty.”

Rose burst into giggles, tickled by him and the weightless feeling in her stomach. “You should never use booty in a sentence,” she gasped. “Too...too Gwen Stefani.”

“Booty,” he repeated, pushing his lips into an exaggerated pucker, squinting down at them. “Boo-tay.” He cocked his head to one side as he weighed the merits of her criticism, and then in a posh accent intoned, “Buried treasure.”

Watching the rotor's light play over the planes of his face, Rose grew thoughtful. “You're never going to settle,” she said, with quiet assurance. “We'll just keep traveling.”

Focused on the monitor readings, the Doctor took a moment to register her serious, slightly wistful remarks. Once he'd digested them, he glanced up from his work, catching and holding her eye. “Will we?”

“Yeah,” she told him with a faint smile and a firm jut of her chin. “I think we will. It's not a bad life.”

“Better with two,” he murmured, grinning.

Completely content with her place by his side, and her predictions concerning their future together, Rose beamed back at him. The TARDIS engine signature changed, a sure sign they were dropping into normal space. The Doctor hit the brakes and he and Rose went tumbling.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Weather confirmed as mild and sunny, they hustled to the wardrobe to change. On the way there, they alternately grabbed and tickled one another, making the journey more of a traveling tussle than a foot race. The Doctor, however, still claimed victory when he reached the top of the spiral staircase first. He twirled about with his arms thrust up into a vee. While he was giving his speech, Rose rummaged about for something to wear. The Doctor took no time at all to select an open-necked, deep blue, polo shirt but he puzzled over shoes. After a long study of row upon row of footwear, he'd narrowed his choices down to two pair of converse trainers exactly like the ones he'd left on Sanctuary Base Six. Setting the shoes side by side, he crouched to study them.

Meanwhile, Rose picked out a lovely, yellow sun dress and lacy, white shawl. While the Doctor was preoccupied with shoes, she darted to their room to pack a few essentials. She found her Birkenstock walking sandals under the desk, stuffed a swimsuit, sunscreen and a towel into a carryall and hurried to meet the Doctor in the control room. He was pacing impatiently when she arrived but greeted her with a bright smile. Launching himself across the room, he took her elbow in a firm grip and escorted her to the outer door. She stood there staring, when he let go of her. He gave an impatient sniff and opened the door like a gentleman, hanging back a little to let her go through first.

The TARDIS had landed neatly, wedging itself between two low stone and adobe structures, door facing the sea. Rose disembarked into an arbor of bushy, flowering trees. As promised, she found herself surrounded by exquisite natural beauty. Sand. Sun. Surf. Verdant greenery and exotic blooms. Like some South Pacific paradise this small corner of Barcelona had it all. Seabirds wheeled overhead. Tipping her head back, Rose could see the circling birds through slight gaps in the trees and hear their strident caws punctuating the rumble and swish of cresting waves. Insects hummed busily among the abundant flowers. The sunlight dappling Rose's upturned face felt agreeably warm but a cooling breeze tugged at her hair and made the branches around her sway. 

She pirouetted. Vanilla-sugar and amaretto-like floral scents seemed to waft around her, competing with the nose-tingling sea spray. Cascading ivory blooms, petals as smooth and heavy as clotted cream, weighed down silver-green branches. The breeze barely moved them. Rose looked left, and then right along a seemingly endless boardwalk. The walk was canopied by trees far into the distance. There was nobody in sight in either direction. 

Pulled irresistibly forward, Rose glided to the boardwalk railing. Gripping it in both hands, she looked over a dizzying precipice. Far below, a high surf pounded coral and indigo colored boulders. Retreating waves revealed a very narrow strip of pink and black beach. The ocean beyond the foaming breakers sparkled a brilliant blue. Rose could see great schools of colorful fish darting back and forth in the crystal clear water. In the distance, huge inky-blue monoliths, twisting natural stone towers, acted as breakers for the heavier waves. Beyond the stone barrier, giant Nessie-like sea monsters cavorted. Their long necks rose and fell in sinewy dances.

“Oh, it's...it's,” Rose struggled for the perfect word. Her eyes danced with wonder as she looked back at the Doctor. He slouched in the TARDIS doorway, enjoying her first moments of discovery. Finally, she sighed, “It's magnificent.” 

A bouquet of fragrant blossoms on a nearby branch momentarily distracted her from the view. The amaretto cheesecake aroma enticed. She wanted to bathe in it, wear it close to her skin. Leaning over to take a deep whiff of the meltingly delicious scent, she started to gather the spray of blossoms to her nose with one hand.

“Careful,” the Doctor yelped. Springing from a standstill, he reached her in a microsecond, sweeping an arm around her waist and yanking her to him just as the flowers furled and retreated into the tree branch. Dozens of yellow and black barbs shot out to replace the blooms. 

“Blimey,” Rose gasped, sagging against the Doctor's steady arm as she gaped at the now bristling branch. With a nervous chuckle, she added, “Literally, yeah? I could have been blinded.”

“Yes. Jaumelia trees, like everything else from my home world, are deceptive and dangerous.”

“These are Jaumelia?” Intrigued, Rose extricated herself from his hold and cautiously approached the bush again for a closer look. “They smell different. Not so spicy.”

“It's not as hot here. And these are cultivated for a more spectacular bloom,” he told her, hovering protectively. “The barbs aren't poisonous. They aren't even particularly dangerous. They've been blunted by years of selective breeding.” He touched one of the nasty looking spikes with a fingertip and it buckled rather than pricking him. “Still, you might have been injured by the firing mechanism.”

“One disaster neatly avoided,” Rose said, her note of praise complimenting him on his rescue.

“No disasters allowed this trip,” he said. He locked the TARDIS door, slipped the key into his pocket, and then offered Rose his fanned open fingers. Grinning, she closed on him with a gliding step and took his hand, cradling it between both of hers for a moment before clasping it. They set off together down the boardwalk. 

“Where are we off to, then?”

“The township of Valastrada. I made us...one of those...what do you call them? It's on the tip of my brain...” He drew his free hand from his coat pocket and dramatically flourished his arm in the air, trying to conjure up the concept. When he had it, he stabbed a fingertip skyward and said, “Reservations! At a hotel.”

“A hotel? We're not staying in the TARDIS?”

“Nope.”

Rose threw a worried glance over her shoulder, slowing her step as she strained toward the ship. “Maybe I should pack more.”

“No need,” he said with an air of confidence. Carrying her hand to his chest, he tucked her arm under his, keeping her close. She could feel his left heart beating, slow and strong as he said, “Clothing is optional on Barcelona.”

“But not so much for me,” Rose reminded him. They'd visited clothing optional planets in the past but she wasn't comfortable with personal public nudity, yet. “I'd much rather be dressed, thank you very much.”

“You are dressed,” he said reasonably. “And if you'd like another dress we'll buy one. Or ten.”

“Really! We can shop? We've got money?” Rose never squealed but her exclamation only just missed qualifying. Her eyes lit up and she gave an excited little skip. She had a very feminine weakness for new clothes. 

“Bushels full,” he assured her. “Grown on the appropriate local trees.”

“Right,” she drawled, teasingly as she leaned against him. “I keep forgetting you're rich.”

He squinted, rubbing the curl of his ear and hummed. “Hmmmwell...technically...you're rich,” he corrected. Dipping his free hand into his coat pocket, he withdrew a star-shaped piece of metal and handed it to her. Rose recognized it as a credit voucher. Her fingers worried at it back and forth while the Doctor went on, “And also famous. As far as the locals know, I'm just the latest in a long line of decorative kept males. Apparently, you like to ornament yourself.”

“I'm famous?” She didn't believe it. She read the inscription on the chit aloud. “Dame Rose Marion Tyler of the Powell Estates, Sol C-173, Earth. Trotter Lane, Ltd. Worth and Kensington.”

“I had the TARDIS give you a dash of minor celebrity. Bit of back-story for the locals. Not enough fame to draw the paparazzi. We don't want to reenact A Hard Day's Night” he frowned, “or do I mean Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery? Rushing about with the screaming gaggle after you? Doubling back and ducking down dark alleyways to escape? Had my fill of that on Sepiomicron. Did I ever tell you about my stint as a drummer for the greatest rock band of all time. Oddly enough they were called The Beatles in their language. Gave me something to talk about with Pete Best and John Lennon. Lennon. Now there was a song-smith, Rose. Could have used a bit of his help with your little prison ditty. Any...way...” he took a breath, “you're only modestly famous. You've just enough renown to garner us a good table at the posher sort of restaurant.”

“Oh, how...great,” she gushed, bouncing happily. 

“Celebrities generally have less bother with the law,” he said, trying to sound practical but beaming too much to carry it off. He'd planned this to please her and was gratified by her enthusiasm. Humming contentedly, Rose rested her head against his shoulder, warming him through and through.

They chatted as they walked, about local history, the seabirds circling above and Rose's plans to phone home in a day or so. Neither of them paid a great deal of attention to the world beyond each other until they'd cleared the shelter of the Jaumelia bushes. The broader expanse of the beach came into view but Rose's gaze was drawn in the opposite direction. She looked away from the shore toward the hillside township, amazed by the gravity defying arrangement of buildings. Animal drawn carts climbed the steep, cobbled and twisting streets. Low stone houses and shops, glowing gold in the late afternoon sunlight, stepped up the slope of the hill. None of the buildings had more than two levels. They were hand-hewed structures and they cowered like peasants at the feet of, in the shadow of, a great citadel of a hotel perched on the island's peak. 

Pointing at the impressive building, the Doctor said, “Where we're staying. The Sea Sentinel on Valastrada. A five-crescent hotel in all the guidebooks. Renowned throughout the galaxy for its first class accommodations. Spectacular views.”

Rose could well imagine. Suitably awed, she lifted her chin, squinting into the sun as she admired the hotel's unique design. Though a giant among its peers, it didn't tower. It was a low, sprawling building, only four stories high but constructed in sections. The golden adobe facade presented a jagged silhouette. Wings jutted out from a central core, giving each room an unobstructed view of the ocean. Rose thought about standing on one of the many balconies. She wondered how far she would be able to see across the waves. Surely, it would seem as if she stood atop a lighthouse or in a lone tower. Contemplating the prospective view, she swept her gaze along the shoreline. 

What she saw there arrested her attention, driving all daydreams from her mind. Her brain reported in immediately with a question but it took a moment or two for reason to catch up. She blinked trying to process what she was seeing. Forewarned by the Doctor, she'd braced for a certain amount of nudity. But nothing could have prepared her for the bacchanal in progress. The beach was alive with naked flesh. It pulsed with it.

As her mind churned, trying to make sense of what her eyes took in, Rose stumbled to a gawking halt and yipped, “Doctor?” 

Her weight on his arm swung him back to her. “Still here,” he said, cheerfully.

“They're...are they?...I mean everyone seems to be...”

“Nude, yes,” the Doctor said, looking at her rather than toward the beach. “I told you clothing is...op..tion...ah…” As he took in her stricken expression and the crimson flush suffusing her cheeks, his peppy explanation trailed off. Shifting protectively closer, he dipped at the knees to look at her face-to-face. She stared through him. He whipped around, sighting along her line of vision, and saw what had given her pause. A blush reddened the tips of his ears as he straightened from his half-crouch to his full height. “Oh...I...ah...” Eyes wide open, jaw a tad unhinged, he burbled for a moment, and then swallowed. “Yes...that is also...optional...but not generally so...so...uhm...” drawing a nervous hand through his hair, he peeped, “...prevalent?” 

“They're having sex,” Rose hissed, struggling with acceptance as a swirl of conflicting emotions bubbled up from her core. “Everywhere. Everyone.”

“Not...everyone...surely. There's a fellow over there...just...oh...I see, yes...he's...not a good example...” 

Mouth hanging half-open in dismay, the Doctor craned this way and that, taking in the grand scale of the situation. Grouped in twosomes and moresomes, maybe a thousand natives were engaged in passionate intercourse as far as the eye could see. All along the beach and boardwalk the locals writhed, pumped, moaned and gasped in a feeding frenzy of desire. They bucked and clawed and tumbled and screeched. It was a full-on outdoor orgy. No one seemed to be quietly sunbathing, trashy bestselling book propped on chest.

“Mating season,” the Doctor concluded on a rushed exhale. “What are the odds?” He calculated for a moment, shrugged fatalistically and answered his own question. “Well...ten days every seven years. Pretty long ones.”

“You mean this is normal?” Rose asked. “Is it all over the planet? Is everyone...?”

“Oh, no,” he told her. “No, certainly not...all over. And evidence to the contrary, surely not everyone.” He took a breath, releasing it as he said, “Only the breeders. And probably only here. They give birth in the sea so...the shoreline is quiet naturally a....” He noticed Rose staring at her feet and hyperventilating, and faced her squarely, cupping his hands around the balls of her shoulders. “This is not. I repeat...not a disaster. Rose? Honestly. All of this is perfectly natural. We've come here to do the very same thing.”

“I don't know where to look,” she mumbled, her voice straining as she fought back frustrated tears. 

“Look at me. Rose?”

Sucking in air, she managed to just peek at him from beneath her lowered lashes. They took a deep breath together and released it. The Doctor offered her a sweetly indulgent smile. “There. No probs. They're only having sex.”

“I know,” Rose whimpered. “But...I don't...” It overwhelmed her. Gaze sliding away from his, she swiped impatiently at the thin trickle of tears on her cheek, sniffled once and tried to look on the bright side. “I suppose, you're right. It's not a so bad, really. Just other people having sex. But I've never...this sort of thing is a little...I don't...watch.”

“Of course, you don't. Perfectly understandable. Not likely to come up in your culture. New experience, for you. Bit of a shock. But no need to watch...stare, really. We can simply...admire the scenery....mind our own business...I suppose.”

Rose considered this, chewing on her lower lip for a bit, and then confessed, “But I can't help looking, yeah? It's like a car accident. Terrifying but you just stare. Once, at this party, I was searching for the loo and walked in on a couple...in...the throes. And I just stood there...gawping. Not because I'm like that,” she hastily added. “I just couldn't move.” She shook her head, appalled by the memory. “I've seen films and such. But...”

The Doctor's left brow arched as he said, “Films?” He sounded surprised enough to make her blush again. 

“Not those kinds of films,” she exclaimed in a harsh whisper. He swayed when she seized both of his labels for stability, her fingers twisting the fabric. “Art house ones. And some graphic telly.” She'd gone back to staring at her feet. “Drawings in books. Photos. Like your Lesbian Kama Sutra. Mickey had a...had this...collection of dirty magazines. Plus a few links in his email he thought I didn't know about.” 

“I see.” The Doctor struggled not to let his amusement show but a charmed grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. Luckily, Rose wasn't looking at him. Chucking under her chin with a knuckle, he tilted her head up until he could stare deep into her eyes. Voice low and replete with compassion, he asked, “Do you want to go back to the TARDIS?”

“No,” she shook her head once. “It's beautiful here and like you said...just a new experience. Different cultures, different customs, yeah? I only need a minute to come to grips.” She smiled wanly as she added, “How 'bout that? My first orgy.”

“Not as much fun as you'd think, hey? It's true, you never know where to look. Or put your hands. Or stand, assuming you mean to keep out of the way. And I can't say they're any better when you're participating. I remember my first. Rome, 181 A.D. Rather like a Boxing Day Sale at Harrod's. Everyone demanding something, wanting to trade up or get another size, lots of pinching and pulling. I took an elbow to the chin, nearly laid me out cold.”

“How many orgies have you been to, then?”

“Oh...I don't know.” His upper lip curled as he counted back. “Three or four, I suppose. They're all the rage in some centuries. Then, they die out again. Rather like flared trousers.”

He gave her another moment, blocking her view of the beach with a cupped hand as he toyed with a strand of her hair. When she told him she felt ready, he dropped his hand and stepped aside so her view was once again unobstructed. She looked first at the sky and then out to sea and finally at his trainers. He offered her his elbow. She took it, cuddling close, and they set off again, both a bit skittish, cautiously clinging to one another as they navigated around interlocked bodies. Rose turned her attention toward the distant hotel, content to let the Doctor guide her steps but every now and again she glanced down from the Sea Sentinel and her gaze found a huddle of amorous natives. 

They were an attractive people, as sleek and fit as seals. Mammalian. Humanoid. Two arms, two legs. Dangling bits, Rose didn't want to dwell on. She studied faces, instead. Somehow, seeing the expressions of ecstasy around her, made the sexual excesses seem more acceptable. The Barcelonans had bony vertical ridges where humans had noses. Like their dogs, they breathed via feathery gills on their necks. Nearly all of the natives were almond-eyed, olive-skinned brunettes. Both males and females had marked widow's peaks and wore their glossy, fine hair plaited into a single ponytail. Most of the braids would have been long enough to skim the ground, had anyone been standing.

The Doctor smiled benignly at everyone they skirted. Most of them ignored him but a few waved or winked or beckoned. Had he been alone, he would have been happy to study their mating habits a bit closer, maybe ask them a few questions. However, he was acutely aware of Rose's discomfort and steered her steadily along, his hand over hers where she gripped his arm. A few yards beyond the Jumelia arbor, they left the boardwalk, through a gate, and crossed a pebbly stretch of bare soil, picking their way around piles of clothing and shoes, until they reached the beginning of a bustling street.

Festive music and raucous shouts greeted them, drawing them into the life of the tiny seafront community of Valastrada. Merchants jostled each other to present them with goods: bolts of cloth, jars of honey and mysterious packets of herbs. Breeding season brought the tourist element to Barcelona. Alien and human visitors mixed with the natives, adding to the cacophony. Peddlers offered all manner of goods and services. Carts and draft animals blocked the roadway. Carters hawked their wares from the backs of their vehicles. Storefront displays beckoned passersby. Rose noticed many of the more popular shops appeared to be red-light district businesses. But she spotted flower vendors and shoemakers and fishmongers as well. 

The circulating people seemed older and less passion-frenzied. Matronly native women with children in tow haggled for bargains, reminding her of the open markets at home. These women wore sarong-style dresses, held closed with mother-of-pearl clips. There were still lovers, milling about in obviously randy groups, tugging at each other's clothing, heads close together, but they were more discrete in their assignations. Marginally talented musicians played indifferent melodies and random couples paired up to dance. Feeling completely content, the Doctor gave Rose an experimental twirl. She laughed, attracting the attention of a scantily clad and very male Barcelonan. He approached with his hands held out to both of them but his eyes fixed on Rose. 

Experiencing a frisson of alarm, the Doctor stepped in front of her. “Sorry, no, we aren't in the mood. But thank you,” he said. 

The native took the rejection in stride. He shrugged, smiled and veered away but then paused, glancing again at Rose. “Pardon me,” he said, “But don't I know you from somewhere?”

“I can't see how you,” Rose began, but then remembered. She shot the Doctor a desperate glance.

“You're Rose Tyler,” her admirer crowed, causing heads to turn. Several people appeared to recognize her at once. They murmured agreement and moved closer as her original admirer went on, “I won a week's pay on your last race. One engine off line and you still set the interplanetary record for round trip flight to Talgerus. It was amazing. Amikax,” he called into the crowd. “It's Hammki. Come and see, I've got Dame Rose Tyler over here.”

The woman to Rose's left ran an appreciative eye over the Doctor as she spoke to her neighbor sotto voce. “I heard she was dating His Excellency Viceroy Wilkerson. Do you think that's finished? This one is a big improvement. Except for the hair.”

“I read about him. He's a lord of something,” the neighbor returned.

A series of audible audience comments followed this remark. “A Time Lord.” “A what?” “Gallifreyan aristocracy.” “Any good in the sand?” “I thought they were extinct.” “Probably not worth a go, then.”

“Oh, now you must. You simply must let us take you to the beach,” Hammki insisted as his friend Amikax arrived. “I promise you won't regret it. I have a certain reputation of my own, you know?”

“Yes,” the Doctor drawled, a jealous spark in his eyes and a rather intimidating expression on his face. “I'm sure you do. But...sorry...very busy. Must dash.”

“Oh, I don't know, Doctor,” Rose said, mischievously tilting her head as if considering Hammki's offer. “I can always spare a little time for my fans.”

“Do you mean it?”

“No, she doesn't,” the Doctor inserted, firmly. He turned his thunderous glare on Rose. “Go on, then, tell them you don't mean it.”

Rose relented. “Sorry, boys,” she sighed. “He's just so possessive. Maybe next time.”

“If you change your mind,” Hammki began.”We'll be at...”

“She won't,” the Doctor said, dropping an arm around Rose's waist and herding her away. 

Glancing over her shoulder, Rose grinned when Hammki and Amikax greeted another couple with the same level of enthusiasm they'd shown for her. The foursome kissed and fondled each other. Rose's steps faltered. The Doctor looked back and caught her staring at her fans as they performed a crude mating dance. Watching them slither and squirm made Rose shiver. She wasn't used to this kind of stimulation. Through the palm of his hand, he could feel her anticipation mounting, her arousal increasing. She moistened her lips, her teeth lightly grazing the lower one. Her pulse had quickened, becoming a visible tick in the curve of her throat. When the dancers broke for the beach, she let out a hungry little mew. The Doctor sensed a primal heat building in her, one he wasn't entirely sure he'd be able to satisfy. Skimming his hand down her arm, he interlocked their fingers. 

“We could join them...if you'd like,” he offered.

Though Rose had been thinking along those lines, given his apparent jealousy, the Doctor's suggestion took her off-guard. She darted a quizzical glance at him and, seeing he was serious, asked, “Do you want to?”

“Not particularly,” he admitted, with a shrug. “But then, I'm not generally interested in that sort of thing. Time Lord.”

“Whaddya mean, Time Lord? You've just told me you've been to three or four orgies. Who can't remember the number of orgies, they've attended?”

“Someone 900 years old. And yes...well...no,” he scowled at her, exasperated, “Haven't you been listening to a word I've said? Orgies don't matter. We lack libido. An arousal mechanism.”

“Yours seems fine to me.”

“Well, it would. To you.”

“What about Omega?”

“Omega was mad. And consummating, converging, seeding the galaxy with his offspring. I'm half-mad myself, come to that. I'm operating on a biological imperative, last of my kind. Of course, I'll be aberrant. But that doesn't change the basics. When it comes to sex, mostly, I participate out of...of...well, a sense of social obligation, I suppose.”

“Obligation?”

“Politeness. Sometimes you can't avoid joining in if you plan to stay in the vicinity. Like at orgies. Gets awkward standing about with your hands in your coat pockets, admiring the ice sculpture. So, you grab onto someone. Every now and again, I find myself swept along by circumstance. But I don't mind. I learn something new every time.”

“Every time,” Rose said softly. She couldn't help remembering all of the books he'd had out the first time they'd had sex. What exactly had motivated him to approach her? She tried to think back. “So you don't get...horny?”

“Not as such, no,” he admitted and felt her stiffen. He could sense her emotional turmoil but had no idea why she wrenched her fingers free of his. Unfortunately, she didn't keep him in the dark for long. 

“Are you saying, when we...? But you...you kiss me,” her voice cracked as she pointed this out, “and you even said we couldn't kiss in public because...you might lose control. And now, you're saying...you don't even enjoy it? You're just...what? Learning?” 

“What? Oh, no. No. Of course, not. I enjoy it. You. Our union is...well it's...very pleasant. I'm just not...”

“Human?” Rose snapped.

“No. I mean, yes, of course, I'm n-not.” He sputtered for a bit, staring at her with wary confusion. “you know I'm not human, Rose. I thought you understood the difference. What...exactly are you upset about?”

“You just said you don't want to have sex with me. You're just playing along.”

“No, that's not what I said at all. But, yes, all right. I can see what you're getting at. It's different for you, biologically, because you've got all those nerve endings. And I don't, my species doesn't. We don't engage in recreational sex. For the sport. For the transient thrill. We mate to procreate. With that out of the picture, I don't throb or yearn or whatever. But that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the experience, esthetically, emotionally, on some level. I find it all...rather like...what? Like...cheese, I suppose.”

This analogy was beyond Rose. “Like...cheese?”

“A bit of Brie or Cheddar on the plate? Adds to the overall...doodah...the presentation. Makes the meal, some might say. But you don't need cheese. It's not the burger. Not the wine,” he illuminated. “Not the Pesto Rigatoni.”

“Not important,” Rose murmured, getting his drift. 

He opened his mouth to correct her but, unsure what to say, closed it without speaking. Lowering his chin, he gave her a pleading look and held his hand out. She didn't take it. Instead, she crossed her arms over her chest and set off again. He rushed to catch up, falling into step beside her as she marched along with her head bowed, shoulders hunched. She wasn't happy. And this he felt bordered on disaster. She didn't look at him, not once, as they climbed the rest of the way to the hotel, each silently lost in thought.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The view from their third-story hotel room proved more breathtaking than Rose had imagined. The two outer walls were mostly window, in any case, but beyond that they were designed like garage doors. When the bellhop pressed the right button, the walls rolled up into ceiling tracks, leaving the room open to the air on two sides. Rose stood short of the balcony, gazing out to sea and wishing she had a bit less to think about. Her stomach churned with anxiety. She didn't know what she wanted. Him, of course, but not like this. Not out of some misguided sense of duty. She wanted him to love her and if he didn't...if he truly couldn't...then maybe she should just ask to go home. But...it felt like love...the way he looked at her, touched her...the things he did for her, offering to buy her a house, making her famous for the day.

A buffeting wind mussed her hair and wrapped her dress around her legs. She'd tossed her shawl on the bed when they'd entered the room. She considered retrieving it but decided she was warm enough. Behind her she heard the Doctor exchanging pleasantries with the bellhop while signing off on a tip. He, also, placed a breakfast order for the next morning. They hadn't needed help for her one small bag but the hotel provided bellhop assistance regardless.

“If there's anything else you need, sir, madame,” the bellhop said. ”My name is Kirgtwi and I'm on duty until moonrise tomorrow.”

Rose turned to face him. “What do you do for fun around here?” she asked, her voice cold and impersonal, her face stony.

“Do, madame?” Kirgtwi's dark eyes darted to the turned down bed. Clearly, in his opinion, off-worlders checked in for only one reason during the Mating Season, but he gave no other sign of confusion. Inclining his head, he politely asked, “How do you mean?”

“If I don't want to go to the beach and I'd rather not stay here. Where can I go?”

“It is the Season, I'm afraid,” Kirgtwi apologized. “Most of the fishing and tour charters are closed down until next week. There's always the spaceport.” he pointed out the window. Rose looked where he indicated and saw a distant monorail, crossing the seas to another island. “But you must have just come from there.”

“We've been staying with friends,” the Doctor said, smoothly. “Taking in the ambiance, you might say. Is there a mall or a museum or a good restaurant nearby?” 

“No, malls, sir. But there are several fine shops and galleries just off Windershin Street, out the lobby entrance and to your left. The lady probably shouldn't wander alone. Valastrada is perfectly safe for the most part but it is the Season. The Sentinel, of course, has a fine restaurant, but there are also several others nearby. Most cater to offworlder appetites. All of them will be open.” He stepped around the Doctor and crossed to the bedside table. Withdrawing a remote control from a drawer, he punched a few buttons and a holographic video display appeared in the center of the room. Handing the remote to the Doctor, he pointed at its controls, saying, “This button adjusts the focus and placement. This one volume. And this one lets you tune your feeds. Feed 181 has free usernet access. You can request local maps, menus and brochure-vids. The sports and erotica channels are free but news networks and game feeds are pay-per-view.” 

“Thank you,” the Doctor said, briefly thumbing buttons until he'd positioned the holo-image over the bathing pool at the far side of the room. He made the screen tiny, an inch across, and then larger, and then asked, “Is there a drapery for the bathing area?” Like all Barcelona residences, the hotel had open toilet facilities as well as a public bath. The natives were not a shyly, retiring people when it came to bodily functions.

“A privacy screen, sir,” Kirgtwi said. He crossed to the toilet and pointed to a lever, “just here. Pull this to activate it. And these,” he said, nodding to the buttons by the door, as he approached them, “are for the walls. There are lighting options and curtains, as well. No one can see in at this level but if you or the young lady would be more comfortable with a sense of privacy.” He thumbed a switch and gauzy draperies unfurled from concealed ceiling panels. Waterfalling down, the curtains caught the wind and swelled like filling sails. 

Rose backhanded the delicately fluttering drapes aside and stalked out onto the balcony. The Doctor winced. He'd cast out psychic feelers, but drew them hastily in, afraid they might be singed off by her icy vibrations. Wondering what he could do about her mood, short of lying to reassure her, he cut his eyes toward the bellhop and broke out a 200-watt smile.

“Kirgtwi, my good man,” he said, conversationally. “The last time I stayed here, the hotel offered Nanorganic's Blue Label line in a human configuration. Is there any chance you still carry them?”

“Oh, yes, sir. They've just launched the Tau Epsilon series. Cutting edge neurosync. You'd swear you were born with it. Haven't had occasion to try it, yet, but I've heard nothing but good things. Were you thinking for yourself or the young lady.”

“The lady. And we'll need some bathing things...oils or bubbles or what have you...and an evening gown, I shouldn't wonder. Maybe some jim-jams or a kimono or whatever.”

“Of course, sir, I'll notify our stylist and make you an appointment with our Nanorganics technician. Any preference for size?”

“I'm a twelve,” Rose said from the balcony. “A fourteen if the label runs small.”

“A...four-fourteen?” Kirgtwi stammered. “For a human? I'm not sure we stock a selection in...

“I think more of an eight,” the Doctor stage whispered.

Rose parted the curtains and stepped through into the room again. “Flattery aside. Look at these hips. An eight will never do. I might manage a ten, though. Do your sizes run wide?” The Doctor pressed his lips together determined not to laugh.

Kirgtwi by contrast studied Rose with the eye of a connoisseur. After the perusal, he spoke to the Doctor from the corner of his mouth. “She does have magnificent hips, sir. That's generally a sign of a healthy appetite. If you'd like I could make a few calls.”

“That won't be necessary,” the Doctor assured him. “We'll take an eight.”

Rose glanced from his glittering eyes to the bellhop's red face. “What? What's so funny?”

“Perhaps a nine,” the Doctor told Kirgtwi, guiding him to and out the door. “Or a wide eight. Human configuration, mind.”

“We have one that tapers, sir.”

“I'll be along in a bit to see,” the Doctor said, closing the door in the fellow's face. 

Rose read her misunderstanding, if not its specific nature, in the Doctor's tight shoulders and manful efforts not to double over snickering. “You weren't talking about dress sizes were you?” she surmised.

“No. We...ah...no.” He grinned broadly. Then, he tipped his head back to study the ceiling. He was almost afraid to launch into the subject of sex again. It hadn't been going well so far. “We were talking about a...a prosthetic...a masculine member.” He dropped his chin and met her eye as he gestured at his trouser front. “The sort you're used to.”

Rose wrinkled up her nose in distaste. “What? Like a...strap-on?”

“Oh, nothing so crude as that. Nanorganics Ltd. makes artificial limbs. You remember the nanogenes, from Jack's crashed ship?” Rose nodded, moving closer to him. “Well, the same sort of technology can be used for life-like prosthetics. Specially engineered nanobots link to the central nervous systems, so the arm or leg or...”

“...or...whatever?”

“...whatever...appendage...has full sensory input. It feels completely real. Blue Label, however, is strictly recreational. A temporary solution to an age-old problem. The line provides attachable, alternative genitalia for mixed species couples, like...well...like us. So they...or...we, as it were, can learn how the other half lives. And as the company is headquartered on Earth...specifically in Old, Old New York...they measure the length of their collection in American inches. So, a fourteen would be rather...” He held his fingertips the appropriate distance apart.

“Oh...”

“Yes.”

“Oh...god. The bellhop...he must think I'm...”

“Intriguing? Adventurous? No, what did he say? Healthy!”

“I'm so going to slap you,” Rose laughed, sounding more like herself than she had since they'd stumbled upon the first rutting natives. 

In unspoken accord, they shuffled to within a foot of one another, both shyly drawn in. Rose toed the carpet. The Doctor placed both hands at her waist. Bracketing it, he pulled her to him until her hips nudged into his. She resisted, leaning back to minimize their contact; wrestling with her mixed emotions as she struggled to sort out his mixed signals. She had no idea what he wanted from her. But she, finally, gave in to her own desire and melted into him. When they were chest to chest, the Doctor sighed, his lashes fluttering shut. Head back, eyes closed and mouth slightly ajar, he savored her warmth, drawn to it mentally and emotionaly. Rose ran her palms up his arms.

“I like that,” he told her, in a diffused whisper, “You can do it any time.”

“What else do you like?” she asked, softly. 

“Kissing,” he murmured. Without opening his eyes, he brought his mouth to hers, hovering just short of sampling her lips. His hands began wandering. “And your skin,” he said, straying over her curves and grazing the very tips of his fingers along her bare collarbone. She shivered and he pulled back to meet her eye, squarely. “Say you're a Time Lord,” he requested, like it was the beginning of a joke.

She played along. “I'm a Time Lord,” she said.

Grinning, he returned to his preoccupation with her mouth, his teeth gently tugged at her lower lip. “Mmmm...yeah...and you've fallen...desperately...hopelessly...madly...in love,” he said, holding her face in his hands and separating each adverb with a searing kiss.

“I've fallen...” she parroted obediently, when he let her speak, but she got no further. Gazing up at him, she swallowed hard, suddenly unable to draw in a breath.

“Desperately,” he prompted.

“Desperately,” Rose repeated, feeling her limbs going numb.

“Hopelessly...madly...completely...”

“Completely?”

“Utterly.”

“Have you?” she asked.

“I can't say,” he said. “Literally, I can't. And there it is. The crux of our problem. There's an oath. A writ. I swore on my honor to never...feel...say...I lo...I," he opened and closed his mouth a few times, but couldn't go on. Puffing an exasperated sigh, he changed his approach. "It flies in the face of who I am. No Time Lord can do what...I've...done. Because it's not done, is it?”

“You can't...?” dawning enlightenment brightened her expression, "...say~! Yeah?” Beaming, he bobbed his head along with hers, delighted she'd taken his meaning. “The words? You-you can't say those particular words.”

“Not and remain a Time Lord. No.”

“But you can...feel it?”

“I think so, yes,” he said. He felt something for her, something at the bone, deep and meaningful and everlasting. It had to be love. What else could it be? But would it translate to desire, without any expectation of convergence? “That's what we're here to find out.”

“Oh...okay,” she breathed, winding her arms around his neck as he dipped her to the bed.

 

END THIS PART


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How do you approach the Bad Wolf part of Rose when it is on alert for Time Lord invasion? The Doctor tries to get closer to his beloved, but her mind is set against him.

The swirling point of the Doctor's tongue sketched a tribal tattoo pattern around Rose's jugular, reminding her he might bite. She pulsed to his touch, her heartbeat a steady full-body throb. Her nipples contracted as his fingertips skimmed across her closed eyelids, skated the length of her cheekbones. He traced down to her jaw, before shifting his weight and attention. The bed creaked a warning. But Rose, in self-imposed darkness, still gasped when his mouth grazed hers, silken and so very soft. Their first few kisses proved unimaginably tender, and desire, like lazy tendrils of smoke, coiled under Rose's skin. Love lifted her gently, until she floated in blissful serenity. 

All she wanted was to be closer, to slide along his skin. As their kisses grew more heated, she, first, braced against, and then clutched his shoulder. She plucked at his clothing until he obliged her with more skin, shrugging free of his suit jacket. He would have peeled off his polo shirt but her hands found his naked forearm and a sliver of skin at the small of his back and she wrenched him to her. Passion sparked, its embers stinging between his lips and within her peaked nipples. 

Her breasts throbbed as if massaged, though the Doctor's roaming hands were nowhere near. His fingers curled in her hair and stroked up her inner thigh. He showed no hesitation in his exploration. His confidence made Rose's knees weak. Her slipping heels lost purchase in the rumpled bedding so she sprawled, muscles languid and malleable. Liquid ardor, like warm water poured from a pitcher, cascaded down her spine. She grew slick and wet and arched under him, opening her lips and her legs. He nibbled. Tickled. Bit. Knuckled the soaked cotton strip of her knickers aside and entered her. Two slender fingers slipped in and out of her slick-velvet channel. His mouth took hers repeatedly, from varying angles. 

“Rose,” he gasped as she ground against him, lapping into his open mouth, clenching his pumping fingers. 

She wrapped her arms around him, drawing her nails along his nape. He withdrew his hand from beneath her skirt and, instantly aroused, pinned her to the bed, locking his fingers around the balls of her shoulders. His skin seemed to ripple. Rose felt it quiver under her fingertips and dimly registered the danger. But before she could let go, drugged darts fired into her. Fizzing pain struck the palm of her hand and a dozen sensitive points in her mouth. For a second or two, her head cleared. She stood on an emotional bridge midway between personal desire and drugged compliance. A transient sense of triumph buoyed her for a moment as she thought of how quickly he'd succumbed to his arousal. Then, her heart started racing. He was going to enter her mind. She hadn’t planned on going so far. She’d wanted to talk things through. Get her bearings. Find out what he wanted from her. 

But it was already too late for conversation. He had control now. She was his. The foaming seed in her mouth turned to ashes, leaving nothing behind but drug-induced bliss and one, tiny, flickering light of independence. She didn't want to loose herself, but the dreaming seed stole her free will, weighted her limbs. A void opened beneath her soul. She sank deeper into her own mind, clawing at reality for purchase. The room faded away, but before she could be sucked into the abyss, the Doctor filled the void with his consciousness. Flowing through her, he entered her mind as easily as his needle-sharp nematocytes had punctured her skin. 

The encroaching storm swept over Rose, propelling her into another reality. She fought it. And the Gallifreyan inquisitors returned in force. Flashbacks went off in her face like paparazzi cameras, strobbing all around her. She was back on Gallifrey, back in the chair, facing Inquisitors, unable to move. She tugged at her restraints, wanting only to be free, as alien thoughts, an alien presence crowded the space in her skull, crowded her into a corner. It left her no choice but to fight. With a sputtering shriek, she pushed the Doctor away. He tried to hook her back with one arm but she rolled, evading his grasp, and tumbled off the edge of the bed. On hands and knees she scrambled forward until she got one foot braced against the floor. She stood, swaying, lost her balance and staggered through the curtains onto the balcony. 

“Rose!” Alarmed, the Doctor lunged after her. 

He hit the floor a second behind her. Springing through the curtains, he caught her in a loose embrace, steadying her before she got anywhere near the balcony's guard railing. She turned on him like the heroine of a slasher flick, flailing her arms, eyes glassy. Her mental wail, chilling. He tried to comfort her with soothing images. But she would not take comfort. She twisted in his arms, desperate to break free. Switching his grip, he seized her shoulders, holding on tight.

“It's okay, sweetheart,” he cooed.

Rose shook her head. “Not ready,” she slurred, drunkenly. Her fingers fisted in his shirtfront, wrenching at it until she was almost pummeling him with her clenched hands. 

“No? I thought...” he sniffed audibly, “But, no...I see. Yes. All right, then. That's....fi-fine. Rose...? It's not them, is it? It's me. Only...I,” his breathing became strained, ragged, “I’m having a bit of trouble letting go….”

His erratic panting caressed her upturned face. Rose squeaked in dismay when he yanked her closer. Now, each of his exhales warmed her lips. The genetic ghosts of long-dead ancestors prodded him on. He was her Lord, she would submit. What good was it capturing a woman, only to let her go again? He raked both hands along the buttoned-back of her sundress. Up and down. Up and down. Until one hand suddenly cupped her bottom. The fingers of his other tangled in her hair. His eyes blazed, catching the sunlight in amber flecks. He seemed not only alien but divine. A mesmerizing god. Rose couldn’t turn away. Her heart thudded under her ribcage as her knees grew rubbery. He wasn't going to let her go. He was going to have her, here on the balcony, unless she did something to stop him. 

She didn’t want to hurt him but she couldn't do this, not yet, not now. Why couldn't it just be normal between them? Why couldn't they just kiss and...?

She'd no sooner formed the thought than he spoke in her mind. No. You want this. Arousal. Lust. I can feel it in you. 

It was hard to argue with him mind-to-mind. Part of her did want it. She couldn't hide her own desire for deeper union, the pleasure only he could give her. But that wasn't the point. She wanted him to stop. He should stop.

I don't understand...how...? We are one. We are. It's not natural to deny it.

“Doctor!” Rose warned, the wolf stirring at the very edge of her mind. 

She could see the spiral arms of something like twin galaxies swirling before her eyes. There was something between her and her Doctor. With a frisson of fear, she realized the wolf was no longer chained. She accessed memories of it. Remembered it wiping out timelines, rearranging the universe. Don't hurt him, she pleaded, when it rose into her awareness. It didn't acknowledge her command. It churned inside her, as impersonal as a hurricane. A whirlpool. A vortex. The singing howl of it filled her mind, increasing until she wanted to cover her ears.

Like the first Gallifreyan Inquisitor, the Doctor didn't appear to hear it. He wasn’t aware of any dangers, didn't sense the wolf unchained and rising. Even if he had, he couldn't have responded any quicker. It wasn't arrogance or viciousness making him careless of her feelings. He might deride her species from time to time but he didn’t share Omega's sense of feudal privilege, nor did he believe in Rassilon's noblesse oblige. He didn't think of Rose as inferior in any sense of the word. And he would never dream of trifling with her. Instinct had hold of him. But he was fighting it, thinking only of letting go. I will. I can, he told himself.

His ready submission stayed the wolf. It stilled, short of attack, watching the Doctor struggle to give Rose the space she'd asked for. There was no question in the wolf-mind who was alpha, only the question of the Doctor either knowing his place from the start or learning it in a brutal hurry. Looking on from the sidelines, Rose quaked in fear as her two protectors edged closer to battle. Both of the Titans in her mind reassured her she was safe. From the wolf's perspective, she wasn't some ape-child, Psyche to the Doctor's Cupid. She was the vessel, the homeland. 

The Doctor would have agreed with this sentiment had he been able to think rationally. He certainly wasn’t trying to master Rose. She was his equal. His partner. He hadn't elevated her to godhood. She'd helped herself to it. But she wielded it as a toddler might wield a loaded gun.

As her true companion, the Doctor expected to be bulletproof. He would never intentionally hurt or distress her. But it was proving unbelievably difficult to distinguish between their nervous systems, to make them two people again. Given a few moments, however, he managed to unravel their connection. Pain stole his beauty, distorted his features, when he severed the oneirospermatic link. His head jerked back as reality landed a right cross to his jaw. It rocked Rose, too. She gasped, the air unnaturally cold in her lungs. The abrupt dissolution of their psychic connection disoriented her. She'd had no idea breaking off mental consummation would be so difficult. Her muscles kept twitching, like a startle response after someone slams a door, only as repetitive as hiccoughs. An involuntary sob escaped her. 

She was alone. So alone. The vortex had deserted her, too. As it vanished, the void under her soul opened wide again. Something should fill it. Him. Her Doctor. Every cell in her body cried out for him. And he could, obviously, hear, where he stood...apart. But there was nothing he could do, now. She needed him to close the circuit, complete her. The same longing stamped the Doctor's ashen face. He was inches away from fulfillment but he might as well have been on the far side of creation.

Rose listed sideways into him. She didn't have the strength to cling or even stand. She would have collapsed to the floor in a distraught heap if the Doctor hadn’t caught her against his chest and guided her through the curtain to the bed. He kept an arm around her as they both sank to the mattress edge. Rose shivered uncontrollably.

Using the fingers of his free hand, the Doctor gently brushed stray hairs from her face. Physical contact helped him feel better. “I suppose this is what old Omega went through,” he said on a shaky breath. “Every...time. Gives you a little what's the word? Perspective…on,” He elongated the preposition, “Ah...his, so-called, madness.” 

“How could she do it?” Rose asked, wondering about Mrs. Omega, “Deny him, over and over again?” It was hard to draw breath against the icy stab in her chest. “Cor, I'm so cold.”

Her teeth were chattering. The Doctor looked for her shawl but didn't see it. Steeling himself, he released her and, bracing on an elbow, reached for his jacket further up the bed. Once he'd snagged it, he settled the warming material around her bare shoulders. 

“There,” he gasped, sounding vaguely smug as he managed to inch away from her at last. “Probably, it gets easier. I mean, right now, it’s all sort of...empty, isn't it? Echo-y?” Rose shuddered, tugging on the lapels of his coat, hugging it around her “Bound to take some getting used to, this kind of thing. Goes against our natural inclina...tion to...” he let the thought die half-spoken. Shifting to a brighter tone, he went on, “But never mind, hey? We did it. And we're fine. It's rather like having a stuffy head. Or no! Double vision,” he announced with false cheer. “Everything is a bit...ah...distorted, yes? Hard to wrap the mind around being two people again. But we...are...two, people, so I...” There was a knock at the door. The Doctor glanced toward it, drearily sing-songing, “Company,” as if he truly didn’t care, “Should get that.”

He tried to stand but couldn't manage it the first time. As he collapsed back onto his bottom, Rose seized his arm. “Don't go. I didn't mean it. I...I don't want you to go. I just...”

“You were frightened,” he said, gently disengaging her grip and tottering to his feet a second time. He tenderly touched her cheek. “Perfectly understandable. I shouldn't have pushed. Shouldn't have kissed you.”

“But, I wanted to kiss. I wanted...Why is it so cold?”

“We're supposed to be warming each other, right about now. From the inside.” He sucked pensively on the inside of his cheek before raising a brow and lingering over, "as...it...were."

Rose nodded absently, understanding this. They should be together in mind and body...in bed. She glanced over her shoulder at the mussed coverlet. They both wanted more, wanted to make love. She brightened, as she realized what that meant. Peering up at him, she almost accused, “You were aroused?”

“I was,” he sighed, in amazement. “Looks like the books got that wrong.”

Another knock sounded followed by a gentle inquiry in an odd Russianesque accent, “Someone requested a stylist, please?”

“Yes, coming,” the Doctor shouted. 

Despite the ache at her core, Rose grinned. “So you can...? You would have...?” The tip of her tongue grazed the corner of her mouth. “You were going to...what? Ravage me?”

“Let's not get ahead of ourselves,” the Doctor said, backing toward the door. “I shouldn’t have...not yet. It's too soon. We're here to have fun. Enjoy each other and this beautiful place. That's okay...right?” 

She nodded, tentatively. 

He took another step back. It hurt to move away from her. Every instinct he had clamored for a merge. They needed to overcome all barriers between them. There should be no fear, no distance. He wanted to see through her eyes, feel what she felt. Love her, be loved, at the very core. But, like any assault victim, she needed a gentler approach. She obviously wasn’t ready for their most intimate bond. Time to put the cart before the horse. Sex, and then something deeper, more fulfilling. Which brought them to his second reason for insisting on Barcelona: Pypwsea M’ngasa. The only known antidote for the dreaming seed.

“I definitely...want...” Swallowing the rest of what could only be a very awkward confession, he whirled around and yanked open the door. There were four native women in the hallway, all but one of them burdened by parcels. “Yes, hello,” the Doctor barked, and then he beamed at the startled visitors. 

The eldest, and only unencumbered one, of the four spoke in that peculiar not-quite-Russian accent. “Good day, I am sure. I am Madame Zahalle, modiste to the Sea Sentinel. This,” she waved a hand at the person just to her left, a beautiful girl carrying multiple totes, “is my assistant, Gerbona. These others,” she tipped her head to indicate the two women in medical smocks behind her assistant “are not with me but I know them. They provide certain physical services.”

There were four women in the hallway. Three of breeding age. Lust caught the Doctor completely off guard. Primal hunger twisted low in his gut. He'd never felt anything like it before, though his first encounter with Rose, oh, so long ago, had come very close to the mark. Certainly he'd wanted her, agreed readily to her sexual overtures, and then needed to see her again almost immediately. He'd become a sort of temporal stalker for Rose. But there'd been affection mixed with that passion. Other people had inspired similar, if less intense, infatuations in him. Reinette. Romana. Sarah Jane. Even his wife. But this...this base need had no affection behind it. It was hunger, nothing more. It wouldn't distinguish between a banana and a biscuit as long as it was fed.

Though he tried to think of something, anything, else, his hormones fixated on biological possibilities. The modiste's mention of physical services sent his mind skipping from concept to concept, like a stone across a still pond. He remembered Omega's Greek maidens. Swans. Sex. Sex with strangers. If Rose wouldn't have him, another female might. According to legend, he could converge with anyone once his True Companion kicked the process into gear. Her kisses might light the fire, but it would burn for some time with a bit of encouragement. And here were three lovely bits of encouragement, delivered by fate to his door. Wasn't it his duty, as the last of his kind, to reseed the galaxy? Someone would thank him for it. Down the line. He caught himself staring at the lusciously-curved Gerbona, thinking Rose wouldn’t mind if he just… 

A blush swept over him as he checked the thought. Rose would most certainly mind. Rose would be very angry indeed. And he was fairly certain he would feel sick about it as well. Maybe not for an hour or two but just after he rode this hormonal surge into shore. Even considering infidelity struck him as repugnant behavior. He shook away the eager tingle in his fingertips. This would never do. He was a Time Lord. He didn't lust after anything or anyone. Well...Rose...apparently...but only because they were meant for one another. Kicking his disloyal fancies under a mental rug, he ushered their guests into the room. 

“Come in. Come in,” he gushed. “There’s your victim,” he said, pointing at Rose. “Give her anything she wants. Anything within legal limits, I mean. I…” his gaze swept down Gerbona's exposed spine, cataloging every vertebra. She had beautiful skin. “I can’t....stay…must dash but…Rose?” His imploring gaze caught hers, held it for a moment. Her eyes glittered with suspicion. A question formed on her lips and he swallowed hard. He couldn’t ask for what he needed. She would never understand. Determined to be strong, he sucked in air and said, “Back soon. Enjoy your pampering.” 

“Doctor, wait,” Rose called, half-rising from the bed. 

He hesitated, just inside the threshold. “Yes? What?” Did she feel the same need he did? Did she ache now?

“I don't know what to order. Are we going out or...?”

“Oh, yes. Uh. Well...there's dinner, probably, eventually... No. First, I'd say. You'll need to eat...man does not live by love alone. No, bread. Though, of course, he does, doesn't he?” He shook his head. “And then, after dinner, there's this pub... where we met...I'd like you to see.” He ran a hand along the back of his neck, his gaze drawn to the native women setting up shop. Gerbona bent over to open her easel and sample cases. The two unnamed ones were drawing Rose a bath. He thought about being wet, sweaty, slick with bath oil and.... “You'll need something to sleep in, I shouldn't wonder. Nightrail...or not. You didn’t last time. I took you to a steamy, seedy motel room and we got very... ...that....sort....of thing. Evening dress. Something...breezy...easy to remove” He gave his head another sharp shake. Rose fought to contain a smile and he wondered if he'd spoken aloud, or worse, if she could still hear his thoughts. “You'll want to be comfortable, obviously.” He took an involuntary step toward her. We could get comfortable, right now, Rose. Let's send these people away...or...if you'd rather, let them stay...two's company, five's a party... “I should...really...really...” He stopped in his tracks and pointed over his shoulder, all without breaking eye contact with her, as he finished breathlessly, “Go.”

Rose nodded, dismissing him and turning easily away. 

Hot with embarrassment, he stumbled backward over the threshold and into the hallway. He closed the door on temptation. But he couldn't bring himself to release the doorknob. What the hell was wrong with him? He looked left, and then right. There were no other guests in the hall. He could find a woman, though. At this time of year, in this town, finding a woman would be so easy. If he wanted to. Only, he didn't. Not wholeheartedly. He stood there, unobserved, tuning into his fantasies but appalled, even repelled by them. He couldn't believe his subconscious would suggest he converge with Gerbona and Rose and, well, the lot of them, even Madame. 

Oh, he had issues with Rassilon's informational cleansing. He'd always objected to it on principle, but now...now, he felt betrayed by his youthful teachers. Everything he'd believed, been taught, was a lie. He'd never even considered the possibility of Gallifreyan orgies. His people were so stuffy, so unimaginably dull. The very idea brought a smile to the lips. But maybe his primitive ancestors indulged in more heated interaction than he'd been led to believe? If so, he'd never seen a reference to it. And for that omission, alone, someone owed him an explanation. Certainly, it was just the sort of information Rassilon's Enlightenment Movement would have repressed. 

The Doctor snorted, and then scoffed, “No capacity for sexual desire, indeed.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Left alone with Madame Zahalle and her entourage, Rose covered her shyness with a warm manner. She smiled politely and said, “Might as well get on with it, yeah? I need an evening dress. And something to sleep in.”

“You like...off world clothes? This that you have on?”

Rose glanced down at her sundress. “It's okay. Very comfortable and cool. For the beach.”

“But for your mate, you dress to please, yes? Comfort, as you say, is for the beach. For you, so golden and bright...rich colors, soft flowing lines, I think. He likes to touch?” 

Cheeks burning and pink, Rose said, “I...uh...yeah, he likes to...touch.”

“I can tell this by your figure. Also, by his eagerness to stay by your side. Always you should encourage this in him.” Madame snapped her fingers and Gerbona selected, and then opened a tote, folding down the front flap to display dozens of fabric samples. “To keep his interest, we start with texture. Something that melts under his hands, yes? Something that teases? Something simple? Something sophisticated?” As she made each suggestion, she chose a scarf of the described material, some rough, some smooth, and wafted each at Rose, grazing her bare arms. “You want he should crave you? Dream of you? Or remember you always?”

“All of the above,” Rose said with a laugh.

“This I can do.”

Rose picked out gauzes and satins and soft, aged cotton and fabrics she had no names for. One of them had a metallic sheen and draped like silk but exhibited no static cling. It graced the body, moving as the wearer moved. “I like the red. Or maybe purple in this,” she told her dressmaker. Gerbona's slender fingers danced around the translucent computer display before her, recording every preference. On impulse Rose also chose a comfy flannel material in a blue and pink plaid pattern. She remembered the Doctor explaining how plaid had become a universal pattern. And how he'd lost a sizable bet because he'd been certain paisley would catch on much better, but it hadn't.

“Now, we decide on styles,” Zahalle announced. “Please, don't let us keep you from your bath, madame. This part of the process needs only your viewing.”

The bathing pool shimmered with fragrant oils and steamed with exotic perfumes. Tempted, Rose looked from the bath to the two women flanking it. While she wasn't a fan of general outdoor nudity, she had gotten quite used to public bathing. Though this was the first time she'd faced being bathed, it only took her a moment to decide to take advantage of the hotel's pampering staff. Offering her back to one of the unnamed native women, she asked for help with her buttons and the woman's name.

“I'm Lisilii,” the woman said. A graceful flutter of her hand indicated her friend, “And this is Rowana.”

“Rowana is an Earth name,” Rose told them. “Though not very popular. Sort of like Rose.”

“My grandmother was from the Andromeda Colonies,” Rowana said. Studying her a bit closer, Rose noted Rowana's hair curled and wasn't the same sleek brown of the others but more reddish. Nor were her eyes quite as almond-shaped. “She came here for a holiday and decided to...” She gasped mid-sentence and fell abruptly silent, her gaze fixed on Rose's backside.

“Sweet Salimunia,” Madame Zahalle squeaked, at the same time. “What is that? Where did you find it?”

Rose hardly had time to glance around and register their wonder before a score of caressing fingers assaulted her. She wriggled away from them, laughing, not in amusement but because they were tickling her. “What are you...?”

“This,” Madame demanded, tugging at the waistband of Rose's knickers until the elastic snapped.

“Hey, enough of that,” Rose yelped, crossly. The last thing she needed was focused interest in her arousal soaked underwear. She'd hoped to divest herself of them quickly before anyone noticed the wet patches. “Why are you on about my knickers?”

The unfamiliar word caused a murmur to swell like a cresting wave among the natives. “Nic...earts?” Madame tried.

“Knickers,” Rose corrected. “Underwear. Boyshorts. Don't tell me you've never seen knickers before? They're nothin' special. I got them ages ago...on Earth.”

Giddy with discovery, Madame Zahalle circled. The other women were also drawn in by the new fashion possibilities. They examined the knickers from every angle. Lisilii went so far as to reach between Rose's legs. The slick slip of her fingers on wet cotton caused Rose to emit a tiny shriek and do a straddle-legged hop backward. The others didn't seem to note her embarrassment as they exclaimed over the fit and simplicity of her underwear. “You could wear these in the water,” Gerbona said, setting off a chorus of agreement and alternative suggestions.

“In the water?” Zahalle sighed. “Yes, in the proper material. Tobilen. Or Synthex. I must study this design. Introduce it here.” She implored Rose. “Tell me what you know of the designer. Can I work with her? Or is it a male? I cannot believe a male would be so practical...still...”

“You...honestly...have never seen knickers before?” Rose couldn't believe she'd caused such a sensation. It was akin to the Doctor's introduction of bubblegum to the Zoobgahba tribe. “Where I come from they're pretty much everywhere. I don't think the idea belongs to anyone. I'm pretty sure you can use the pattern if you want.”

“No, no, I could not steal such brilliance. It would be worth a fortune.”

“Well,” Rose floundered for a moment and then said, “You could make it your own, yeah? Only copy the concept...let it inspire you.”

“Yes...yes! I could do this. I will design for you. Nic-ears. I will call them, Dame Rose's Bottom.”

Rose shook her head, laughing. “Nice of you, yeah...but I'd rather you didn't. I already have several pairs. I need a dress. And something to sleep in. But sure. If you want to make me one, a single pair of knickers, too. Just to practice. That would be...great. Only call them something else, please. Zahalle's!” 

After getting Madame's promise not to name the local underwear after her, Rose stepped out of her fascinating knickers and, despite an inward cringing over their condition, surrendered them into the modiste's eager hands. Then, she surrendered herself into the hands of Rowana and Lisilii. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Familiar with advanced technology, Rose expected her new clothes to be ready before dinner, but the efficiency of the Sea Sentinel staff took even her by surprise. Madame Zahalle transmitted orders directly to her shop for immediate manufacturing. The evening gown arrived within fifteen minutes of Rose deciding on a style and fabric. It was just what she'd asked for, a knee-length confection of couture. Cut from the amazingly fluid material Madame Zahalle called Tobilen, the dress was purplish silver and slightly Grecian in design. When worn, a smooth collar of fabric would rest atop the swell of Rose's breasts, emphasizing them. This collar narrowed near the arms to flow into band sleeves. The body of the dress was designed as a series of fabric sweeps, like waves breaking around Rose's feminine curves. The drape of the material hung modestly closed but it revealed tantalizing flashes of skin if she twirled. She had never owned anything quite so sexy. The dress even came with accessories, two hair combs and matching earrings in chunky silver with purple pearls. 

It was all Rose could do not to scramble out of her bath and into the gown. Only the fact that she was currently soapy stopped her. By the time she'd rinsed, the initial impulse had passed and more clothing had arrived. Aware that the Doctor would soon return, Rose let Lisilii continue what was, essentially, a water massage. The relaxing regime included a salt and grit scrub, followed by three kinds of soap, and finally some kind of golden massage oil, rubbed into her skin. Between phases of the treatment, Lisilli, who had stripped and joined Rose in the tub, directed streams of hot and cooler water at every tight muscle. Once Rose got used to being handled so intimately, she found the whole process very soothing.  
At the end of the bath, Rowana washed Rose's hair, finishing it with a scented rinse which left every strand so silken slick Rose doubted even stasis field combs would hold a style in place. 

Wrapped in a white flannel sheet, she settled across one of the room's two chaise lounges. The lounge proved adjustable, tipping back to allow Rowana room to work on Rose's hair. Rose drifted in and out of a doze, cradled in comfort while Rowana clipped and styled. More garments arrived, including a charming set of flannel pajamas, in pink and blue plaid, with loose fitting, boyshort bottoms. Rose laughed merrily when she saw them, thinking they could have come from any department store on Earth and would be perfect for quiet evenings aboard the TARDIS.

Just like at home, the hairdresser gossiped as she worked and Rose joined in sleepily, jesting back and forth with the other women as they told stories on one another. They asked about her fictional fame and she impressed them with her modesty by denying it all. They asked about the Doctor, making sly comparisons to their own men. Rose learned Rowana was about to be married and wished her well. Rowana immediately asked Rose to the ceremony. She tried to decline but was assured by all four women that the whole village would be there. It would be the biggest party of the post-mating season. Hoping it was proper and polite, Rose agreed to come.

“If we're still in town,” she added. “The Doctor's...work...takes us all over.”

“It must be hard for you,” Gerbona said. “Away from your family? Your friends?” 

Rose shrugged. “I used to miss everyone. But now...I've gotten used to it, just the two of us.”

“Always is it so,” Madama Zahalle said. Shaking a finger at Rowana she went on, “Soon, you will learn. You build a new life with your mate, become each other's family...each other's friend.”

Rose silently consider this while she waited for her coif to set. As soon as her hairdresser allowed, she got up to try on her new clothes. Every piece fit perfectly. Her surprise over this insulted Madame and Gerbona explained how there was no room for error. Her computer scanned Rose's naked body and used the data to make precise measurements. Every part of the process was digital. There were few chances for mistakes, except in the designer's input. Rose showed enough interest in the process, and joy in the finished products, to mollify Madame and they parted as friends.

By the time the Doctor returned, Rose was dressed and coiffured for the evening and feeling sexier than she'd ever felt in her life. The slippery slide of her new gown on her bare skin, peaked her nipples, ratcheting up her desire. Still, she had no expectation the Doctor would notice how she looked. He didn't tend to notice those things. She heard the door open, but she didn't rush to greet him, knowing he would come to her. He set his single shopping bag on a chaise lounge beside her stacks of clothing, retrieved his jacket from the bed and went out to her on the balcony. 

In a come-hither mood, Rose cast a grin at him over her shoulder before turning back to the railing to enjoy the final pyrotechnics of a magnificent sunset. Her hair caught the fading light. Stasis field combs held her burnished gold tresses in a loose mass at the back of her head, but several strands fluttered in the breeze. The hairstyle and the cut of her dress enticed him to focus on the exposed length of her neck. The curve of creamy, unadorned skin drew him in. Wrapping his arms around her waist, he squeezed, lifting her up on her toes as he savored her yielding softness. His hands slipped easily through the gaps in the dress to find smooth flesh. She was naked as a native Barcelonean underneath. The detail made him smile. When he settled a kiss in the hollow below her jaw, his lips left a mark, a golden impression like a seal of approval. The ethereal tattoo glittered for a moment before fading. 

Rose leaned back into him with a contented murmur. “Missed me, hey?” 

Feeling nonverbal, he vocalized his agreement in a deep thrumming hum and stroked his cheek along hers. Then, dipping under her jaw, he kissed her once more, placing this one on the ridge of her collarbone. Again, the kiss lit up. He drew back slightly to admire it. Fascinated by the luminous effect of his touch, he couldn't remain silent.

“You're glowing,” he announced, giddily.

She gave a girlish jounce in his arms. “Neat, huh? It's this oil excreted from some iridescent sea monster.” Holding an arm out, she scratched it to make her skin light up. “I soaked in it with my bath, but there's a spray, too.” She turned her head to look toward the bedside table where an atomizer of the perfume rested. “Not only smells heavenly, you can write on me if you want.”

Unable to resist, he did, tracing her name along her extended arm. The looping cursive letters beamed like a neon sign for a few seconds and then disappeared. The Doctor chuckled appreciatively and bounced a little at the knees. Delighted by the prospect of branding her, he shifted Rose into the crook of his arm and lightly traced a circular pattern on her right shoulder. She could tell by the intersecting circles it was a word or sentence in his language. But she had no clue to its meaning. She watched him silently, admiring the work when he'd finished. 

“Pretty,” she said. “What's it say?”

“Tell you later. Are you hungry?”

“Starving.”

He, too, seemed to be starving, but for physical contact. His hands refused to leave her body. He skimmed one down her arm to her fingertips, the other across her shoulder blades and around her collarbone. When he'd intertwined their fingers, he backed toward the door, towing her along. As they passed the bed, Rose's step faltered. She chewed on her lower lip, her gaze carrying his to fluffed pillows and silken coverlet. He shook his head.

“Let's eat, first,” he said. “You haven't had anything today but those Sanctuary Base rations. Protein one and six.” 

Her stomach growled in support of his argument and she grinned. “I guess I am ready for supper.”

“Do you want to be pampered some more?” he asked, swinging her around in a circle. “Fine dining and attentive waiters? The Hotel restaurant has our reservation and a first-class reputation. Or would you rather have...I don't know...pub food and beer? Because there's this little place I know...”

“Can't we do both?”

“We can do both,” he said. “We can certainly do both. Your wish is my command.”

She furrowed her brow at him, not angrily but pensively. He wore one of his signature smiles: a tightly controlled, upside-down bow of the lips. A rising flood of affection behind the smile made his eyes light up like Christmas. He seemed to be sharing an intimate secret with her, one only she understood. That inclusive/exclusive expression was one of the many things she loved about him. It made her feel needed. He denied himself, held so much in check, but not to her. She was the one he shared things with, the one who stood between him and a lonely universe. Giving in completely to the joy of being with him, she fell, laughing, against his arm. Her head rested briefly on his shoulder before he swept her out the door. Once he’d locked up, she took his offered elbow, cuddling close as they meandered down the hallway. 

“Could we go dancing?” she teased, weighting the question with a measure of suggestiveness. 

“Oh, absolutely dancing,” he agreed readily, giving her a practice twirl.

“Bowling? Fly fishing? Drag racing?”

He waltzed her to a halt at the lift but pursed his lips. “Not sure I can manage drag racing. No combustion engines. Even finding two mechanized vehicles on this island…?” He waggled his head to indicate it would be a long shot. “Still...never say never ever! Should you make it a challenge, of course, I would try to oblige your thingummy...whim. I used to be quite mechanical, oh, centuries ago. Might tinker something together in the way of an automobile. Might shock the natives.” He sniffed, grimacing. “And when I say shock, I mean, interest. Well, alarm. We might end up in jail, essentially. Something we are trying to avoid on this trip. Chariot racing could be the outer legal limits...global warming and all that.” 

“They've got global warming?”

“Everyone's got global warming, Rose...to one degree or another.” He chortled over his pun as he slithered around her to press the lift's call button. While he was bent over, she brushed at his suit collar, smoothing it where it had flipped up. 

“I’d like to see a chariot race.”

“Oh, they're marvelous,” he gushed. Straightening but not shifting away, he stood practically on top of her. “To watch, at any rate. Technically...I've never driven a chariot. Not, at the reins, as it were. I did navigate during a cross-country race in Mesopotamia. And I rode along with Cuchulain and Láeg a few times. The Celts were amazing charioteers. Left the Romans in their dust. Thrilling, chilling, stuff.” He forced the next two sentences through gritted teeth, focusing her attention with broad illustrative gestures as he spoke. “Wheels grating together. Horses straining against the traces. Láeg could feather a corner on one wheel,” As they entered the lift, he leaned into her as if they were cornering, and then popped upright again as their imaginary chariot stabilized. The other lift passengers shrank away from him, with pointed stares. He was oblivious to lift etiquette. Glancing at the slow moving floor numbers, he bounced like a six year old hoping to speed things up, and said, “Might as well have taken the stairs at this rate. We're crawling.”

“Cuchulain?” Rose teased, to take his mind off their slow progress. “Not Ben Hur?”

“Ben Hur is a fictional character,” he chided. The lift doors dinged as they stopped to let on more passengers. Huffing impatiently, the Doctor seized Rose's hand and guided off into another long, nearly featureless, hallway. “And don't talk to me about Rome,” he went on. “To my shame, I've attended chariot races in the Colosseum. But never again.” He pirouetted left, and then half-turned right, orienting them to the nearest staircase before dragging her along again. “Once you've been on the wrong side of the fence in that particular arena, all of the magic is gone. It's blood soaked ground no matter how often they change the sands, Rose.” 

She nodded solemnly. “I can't believe you were nearly eaten by a lion, while I was standing around collecting pigeons.”

“I was nearly eaten by a bear,” the Doctor corrected, catching her around the waist at the top of the stairs. “The lion gave me no trouble at all. I put it directly to sleep. Which reminds me, I've yet to label the sonic screwdriver frequency for bear.”

They chattered on, dreamily fascinated by each other, all the way down the stairs and across the cathedral-ceilinged lobby. The room was hushed but, owing to the glass ceiling, long windows and pale wood paneling, dazzlingly bright. Low chaise lounge furniture encouraged guests to drape themselves about in attitudes of supreme indolence while solicitous staff brought around drinks and other, more exotic, indulgences. A towering free-form sculpture dominated the three-story high room. Rose gazed up at it, as awed she'd been when first encountering it at check-in. It appeared to be three natives intertwined, but the nature of their relationship, even their gender, changed when seen at different angles. At the foot of this massive stonework a circle of fountains splashed and foamed. 

Several fashionably attired guests sniffed in disapproval in the wake of the Doctor's exuberant passage through their peaceful, if decadent, sanctuary. Rose paid no attention to the gasps and murmurs. She'd hobnobbed with Queen Victoria, Madame du Pompadour and the President of Great Britain. Dame Rose, True Companion to the last Lord of Time, wasn't about to be intimidated by a load of snobbish tourists. Very little intimidated her these days. Facing down the Dalek Emperor and, possibly, the Devil himself, had given her a sense of invincibility. Besides who came to Barcelona to be prudish. Barcelona was, most definitely, meant to be enjoyed.

Not even all the natives agreed with Rose on this point, however. As they entered the restaurant, the Doctor tickled her, setting off her merry laugh. It shattered the reverent hush of the gathered diners. Several stopped eating to stare and the concierge stiffened, his long braid swinging in disapproval. He glared, opening his mouth to rebuke them, but the Doctor's enthusiastic greeting steamrolled over any censure. Responding to the Lordly confidence, the concierge checked the reservations carefully. After a brief hesitation, finger poised on their names, he accepted Rose's counterfeit celebrity as an excuse for her behavior and motioned for a waiter to show them to their table.

Once they were seated, the Doctor took a moment to demonstrate the use of the primary eating utensil. It was a sort of springy version of the spork, an all-in-one implement operated by twirling the wrist. While Rose practiced sporking her salad, they reminisced about their travels, swapping exotic tales for domestic ones. Absently culling through vegetables, Rose told the Doctor about the time she and her cousin Stephanie took the wrong train home from a family wedding. The Doctor shared a sporkful of his custard-like appetizer with her as he lamented the days when trains always ran on time (or someone knew the reason why not). They simultaneously recalled the episode when a late train had almost cost them their lives. As the waiter refilled her wine glass, Rose brought the conversation around to Rowana's wedding.

“We're invited. Which I thought...brilliant...but peculiar. Only, apparently, the whole village is invited”

“Yes, for luck. The more the merrier, or so they believe. A good turnout at these things portents a whatsit? Happy, prosperous union...long life...all that stuff. Everyone is encouraged to follow the bride on her symbolic journey,” the Doctor explained between bites. “From sea to land. At the start of the ceremony, she rises naked from the surf and rolls in the sands of her ancestors.”

“Rolls in the sand?”

“For assured fertility. No sillier than tossing rice at someone when you think on it. Makes more sense, even, considering the native population still mates on the beach to this day.”

“So, she's naked and...sandy?” Rose prompted before sporking up some salad.

“And surrounded by well-wishers. They sing songs about happy days fishing...mating...lounging around half-naked...the ever-after life ahead of her...until the Bride grows sick of it all and leaves the beach. Her mother, or another matronly female, trails after, pleading with her to return to the nest. A sort of counterpoint to the revelries of the crowd, you see? Doom and gloom. The Bride refuses to go home, despite these dire warnings. And...having taken up a plate...or shell...or...dish of some sort, she carries it before her as she walks through the streets searching for her true companion.”

“A man with a fish,” Rose inserted.

The Doctor scrunched his face in disappointment, a sulky pout plumping his lips. “You know the ceremony?”

Rose sputtered in amusement over his comically dismayed expression. He so enjoyed enlightening her and didn't like it when other people beat him to it. “Rowana told me,” she confessed, wine glass at her lips. She drank a little more. The heady fumes were beginning to make her giddy. At least, she blamed the wine for her euphoria. It might have been the company. But the wine definitely stoked the fire in her belly. “Still, I do love listening to you talk,” she admitted, tugging at her earring.

“There’s a blessing,” the Doctor said through a toothy smile. Drunk on something other than wine, he let his gaze caress her, savoring her high color and generous curves. She kept touching herself, drawing his eye to her earlobe or her breast, her throat or her lips. 

“Rowana’s intended,” Rose went on, focusing despite the distraction of alcohol and the Doctor's heated attention to her physical movements, “Ulkrini, is an accountant and,” she lowered her voice to whisper, and leaned across the table to confide, “Not much of a fisherman. He wants to buy a fish for the ceremony because he's afraid he won't be able to land one large enough to please her mother. But tradition demands he catch the fish with his bare hands”

“As they've done here since time began,” the Doctor finished. “It's a way of assuring he can provide for the bride and their children.” 

“Well, as Ulkrini pointed out, it's a bit archaic, isn't it? He provides by holding down a good job. And she has a job, too, so it's nothing more than symbolism.

“Symbols are important, Rose. The signs of things. My native tongue is largely symbolic. We seek to capture the essence of what is. The soul.”

“The soul in words?” Rose lilted, considering this. “I like that. True names have power, yeah?”

He beamed at her, nodding. “Absolutely.” Rose felt breathlessly captivated by his gaze and fumbled blindly for her wineglass. He solicitously guided her hand, molding her fingers around the glass stem, and she blushed.

“Rowana’s mother is set on the fish,” she said, before quickly downing her drink. Her hair caught the light as she tossed her head back to swallow. She set the glass down with an audible clink and went on, “She was ready to call off the wedding. Insisted she wouldn't have him mucking about with store-bought fish. Rowana and Ulkrini had a huge row about it, week ago yesterday, but they've made up, again, as he's agreed to try fishing.”

Absorbed in Rose's explanation, intent on her animated features, the Doctor felt his chest tightening around a ballooning sense of absolute devotion. He wanted to pull her into him, keep her with him always. She embodied life, joy, happiness. But beyond that, she included him. He’d traveled with a lot of people in his time, most of them wonderful company, but only Rose had taken pains to make his world her world. She brought color and warmth to his bare facts existence. Vivified him. And he loved her for it.

He'd attended Barcelona weddings in the past, knew the customs and rituals inside and out. He might even, given the encyclopedic nature of his memory, recall the names of the wedded couples. But it took Rose to give memory meaning, make it real and immediate. People married, loved, built a life. There was a richness to existence he'd never truly appreciated before meeting her. Sometimes he forgot to savor the little things. Rose never did. He traveled through time and space taking pictures. Rose turned his still images into home movies with appropriate music and titles.

Testing her, he casually asked, “So, where did these two meet...Rowena and...?”

“Ulkrini. Rowana and Ulkrini. On a business trip,” she answered, readily, because, of course, she’d found out. Left alone in a room full of strangers, Rose made friends. People told her things they would never get around to telling him. “He sat beside her on the monorail. She was on her way to pick up some supplies from the spaceport. He was meeting an important client. She noticed his braid needed tending. He runs late nearly every day, it seems, and before she came into his life he never allowed time for proper grooming. Rowana is a hairdresser, so she’s quite particular. She straightened his braid and he gave her credit for helping him land an important client. They met for a drink and the rest is history.”

Gaze fixed on hers, the Doctor set his spork pointedly aside. Food didn't interest him, only Rose mattered. Love flooded his face with light as he declared, “You're amazing!” 

The gleam in his eyes made her blush and duck her chin. She snorted demurely, denying it. “I'm not. I was having my hair done. There wasn't anything else to do but eavesdrop.”

“Some people would have talked. I would have.”

“And learned things.”

“But not what you learned. Not about fish and...rows.” He turned suddenly quite serious, reaching to take her hand, as he muttered, “If they’re lonely.” Her breath caught in her throat and her smile faded, as the windows of his soul were thrown quite wide open. She could see deep into him. His eyes kept nothing from her. 

“Doctor,” she mouthed, her expression turning sublimely tender. 

A floating euphoria threatened to lift the Doctor from his chair. Rose loved him. He didn't need to touch her mind to know. He could see it in her face. Fascinated, he leaned closer to her, picking up nuances in her expression he'd never noticed before. For so long now, he'd waited for her to say something, tell him. He'd never thought to find the words written so clearly on her face. In need of a stronger bridge between them, he skimmed his other hand across the tabletop to her. She clasped his fingers fiercely. They breathed in as one, held the inhale, released it and clung to one another, both of them waiting for gravity to stabilize. The Doctor had opened his mouth to suggest they return to their room, when the waiter arrived, startling them out of their mutual reverie. Recalling their surroundings, they shyly released their grip on each other and sat up straighter. 

 

END THIS PART


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seriously, how could two people have such a hard time having sex? More disasters for Ten and Rose after a delicious dinner goes horribly wrong.

“Grilled Coqili fillet, for the lady, with young spring shoots and a Tauptuara glaze,” the waiter announced, snatching a dish from his cart and uncovering it with a flourish that encouraged sweetly aromatic steam to waft into Rose’s face. “And for you, sir,” he said, giving the Doctor’s plate a similar treatment. “Pypwsea ala Sentinel. The finest you will find on Barcelona. Also, compliments of the chef,” he went on, adding a small basket of lightly breaded, deep-fried lumps to the Doctor's side of the table, “tempura-style Pypwsea fritters with a choice of three sauces.”

“And you're certain they're absolutely fresh?” the Doctor said, peering suspiciously at the plate of chunky yellow and chartreuse slime in front of him. “I have a sort of...allergy.”

“I saw them drawn from the carapaces myself, not ten minutes ago. They could be no fresher, sir, unless you ate them raw.” He chuckled dryly to show he was joking. “Will there be anything else? More water? Or wine?”

“No, thank you,” the Doctor said, dismissing him.

An appalled Rose ignored her own meal to gape at his. “What are you eating?” she exclaimed, gesturing with her spork. 

The Doctor glanced up in the middle of shoveling in food. He held a finger aloft, indicating she should wait a moment for him to chew and swallow, which he did with unseemly haste. Cold bile splashed the back of Rose's throat as a dribble of slime escaped his questing tongue-tip to trickle down his chin. Her salad returned to haunt her. She'd seen some disgusting things in her travels but this had to be one of the worst.

“Pypwsea M’ngasa,” he said, once his mouth was empty. He wiped the goo from his chin with a knuckle as he sighed in evident contentment, “Oh, but they're...perfect.”

“Pip..vee…seemoong…?” Rose shook her head and tried again. “Pipveesemen…ah…monng…”

“Mmmm’ng,” the Doctor emphasized, elongating the vibrato at the roof of his mouth. “And I need to eat them before the jelly solidifies.” Murmuring his appreciation, he hastily shoveled in another glob. 

“PeepveeseeMnng…” 

Popping a fritter in his mouth, the Doctor grunted and sprang into impulsive action. Scooting his chair around to Rose’s side of the table, he made a hellish racket. Several diners looked up, startled, as his chair legs grated noisily along the floor. The off-worlders continued to stare as the Doctor gently gripped Rose’s chin and cheeks with one hand, puckering her lips for her. “Mmm’ngAHsah,” he said. “Mmm’ngAHa..saaah.” Releasing his hold on her, he repeated, “Pypwsea M’ngasa….” She parroted the name after him and they smiled and nodded together, mirroring each other. “The Boring Black-Banded Tree Slug,” he translated, in bright conclusion. “Scourge of the lumber industry. Boon to the gourmet palette.”

“Boring tree slugs?” Rose snickered. The Doctor looked at her in bemusement. She poked him in the ribs with an elbow and snorted through a giggle, “Come on…be fair…it's not like you'll find too many brilliant conversationalists among the tree slugs, yeah? What are they going to talk about? How fast the sap is rising?” 

He groaned dramatically over her lame pun, collapsing into her shoulder, clearly pretending he found her sense of humor trying. But, when he cut his eyes to look at her, the gleam in their velvety brown depths gave him away. They sparkled with affection. He slowly wagged his head and let it droop until it pillowed against hers. He was the embodiment of sensual magnetism. Rose tried to fight off the urge to cuddle him but lost the battle. She draped a companionable arm around his shoulders and drew him close to whisper in his ear. 

“You have a bit of slug gristle...just...” she pointed her pinkie finger at his right canine. 

“Ah,” he sat upright, probed with his tongue until he found the offending morsel, and then beamed at her for a dental check.

“Much better,” she said, her mouth very close to his. “And you can't mean to go on eating those vile things.” 

“They’re delicious,” he exclaimed, as if completely put out, and then he kissed her, hurriedly, a light smack of their lips. “See?” he inquired cheekily, his brows arching toward his fringe.

“Are you sure that's water you're drinking?” she asked, peering suspiciously into his glass. “Some people are trying to keep their grilled fish down.”

“Some people don’t know what they’re missing,” he told her, ignoring her insinuation about his sobriety. “Perhaps a deeper kiss is in order. To really...get the flavor across.”

“What about your rule? No kissing in public?”

“Well, it is our anniversary. We can make an exception. I'm sure these good people won't mind if we have sex on the tabletop.” 

“Really?” she asked, going wide-eyed enough to look gullible.

He squinted, head tilted in consideration. “We might have to leave a larger tip.”

“Not...the sex,” she puffed in exasperation and then asked, “Is it really, truly our anniversary? Four years?”

“Truly, really,” he said. “Well, day after tomorrow. And four years, yes, or...no...well,” he drawled. “It's all a bit wonky isn't it? But, I suppose looking at it in a purely subjective, Rose-centric, and mind you, strictly linear fashion...we could...”

“What's the gift for that, I wonder?” she mused, clearly not listening to him. “Is it paper? Or china? Or t-shirts?”

“Fruit,” he said, readily, recapturing her complete attention. “Or flowers. I've bought you fruit. Far more...uh...practical...in my...opinion,” he spaced the words like heartbeats, because she'd distracted him by displaying a pink flash of tongue at the corner of her open mouth. “Full of nutrients. I settled on jaumelia and bananas, devilishly hard to get in this town, I might add, and these tiny, little...” he gulped saliva, while pinching his thumb and forefinger together to illustrate minuscule size, and then blurted, “berries called, ping-pings. Smothered in chocolate? They're just...gorgeous.”

Rose broke into a broad grin. “You bought fruit?”

“It's traditional,” he said, in a very small, sharply defensive voice. “They're upstairs. In my...shopping thing-us...tote. Except, it's not.”

“Not upstairs? Or in the...tote?”

“Not fruit. Not four. Twenty-four is more like. I've known you all your life. Or you've know me. Held you as a baby, remember? Red bicycle when you were twelve? But I don't know the gift for twenty-four.” He whispered conspiratorially, “It's not on the list. The official list skips from twenty to twenty-five. So...twenty-four could be anything, really. Cardboard. Or diamonds. Edible underwear.” He tugged his earlobe. “Salmon.”

“Salmon?” Rose giggled and the musical sound set off a resonance in his heartstrings.

“Why not?” he declared with giddy abandon. “Lovely smoked salmon could be very romantic. Looked at a...certain way. Imagine me hand feeding you toast triangles with a bit of salmon and just a dab of hot mustard...or neufchatel for breakfast. Might do anyway.”

“So, what you're saying is...it could be our twenty-fourth anniversary, day after tomorrow?” 

“Time's relative in the TARDIS.” His eyes followed her fingers as she stroked the back of them over her throat and across the underside of her chin. His tongue tingled, longing to lick along the same path. To avoid gaping in distraction, he cast his gaze to the ceiling as he shrugged and went on, “Well...everywhere. But, especially in the TARDIS. There's a direct correlation between relativities at the core of a singularity. The Eye of Harmony shuffles through assorted realities and picks one. Speaking relatively, we haven't even met yet. Or...from another perspective, re: anniversary: It's our six-hundred and fifty-eighth, retroactively.”

“Retroactively?”

“I wonder what the gift is for that? Can you give retroactive gifts? I suppose you could have something removed. Like a mole. Only I love my mole. You don't want to remove it, do you?”

Pressing her lips together, Rose shook her head in a firm negative. “Got to keep your mole,” she told him in a sultry burr. “It's my second favorite thing.” As she knew he would, he stared at her, open-mouthed, the question half-formed on his lips. Let him wonder, she thought, and went on before he could ask. “But I didn't get you anything. Not even flowers.”

“You will,” he murmured. Deciding he belonged beside her, he didn't move his chair back into it's proper position but, instead, stretched across the table to retrieve his dish of slug slop, splashing the linen with slime as he dragged the meal to him. He could feel the Pypwsea poison taking effect. The texture of the bowl rim fascinated his fingertips. He rubbed along it, turning and turning it through his hands. Stopping only because his mouth was watering in anticipation of his next bite. “You should try one of these,” he told Rose. “Skinned and lightly sautéed in clarified butter. Or,” he snagged a fritter out of the basket and chomped down on it, “deep fried for a satisfying crunch. Mmmm,” he said, shivering through an orgasmic taste sensation. “Oh, Rose, you have no idea. Crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside. Here, just a nibble,” he said, presenting her with his half-eaten morsel, the bile-green innards still oozing.

“Not if it was our four hundredth anniversary and I'd been starving on an island for a week.”

“Oh, come on,” he whined, walking the fritter across the tabletop until he could hop it up onto the back of her hand. “Where's your sense of adventure? Your indominiaable...indomina...spirit?” He pressed against her shoulder, as he slid the fritter down one of her fingers, “Your zest for life? I can take you out into the universe, Rose Marion Tyler. Show you it's wonders, open up new vistas but I can't expand your horizons if you won't try new things. It's not all burgers and chips and beans on toast, you know?”

“Don't you think you've expanded my horizon's quite enough already?”

“But it's...experience...” he cried, throwing his arm out so expansively he sent the bit of fritter flying. It bounced off the hat of a particularly stoic-visaged lady two tables distant. The Doctor and Rose gaped in disbelief for a moment, and then exchanged a mutually, wide-eyed look of giddy horror before hunching together to snicker. 

The elusive waiter appeared again. “Sir? Madame?” he said, quietly. “I must ask you not to throw food at the other guests. It is very distressing for them.”

“Sorry, sorry,” the Doctor and Rose chorused. 

“It was an accident,” Rose went on, going so far as to smile and wave apologetically at the offended lady. 

The Doctor lost interest after his second sorry and went back to his original point. “Here's something you've never tried before,” he said, to Rose, gesturing at his food. “How can you resist the allure of the unknown? I find your obstinacy sadly...provincial.” 

“Just because I don't stick anything and everything in my mouth...” Rose huffed. “One of us has to show a little discretion. We can't both go around licking the walls. How do I know those aren't poisonous?” 

He peered at her, his jaw slack, mouth slightly ajar. Had he told her about the poison? No, he would have remembered. Though his recollection, like the rest of the room, was getting a bit fuzzy around the edges. Light from the air-candle in the center of the table set fire to the irises of Rose's eyes. The flickering incandescence held him in thrall. “Your eyes!” he exclaimed on an awed breath. “I never noticed before...they have such...chatoyancy.”

“Chatoyancy?”

“Oh-ho, you pronounced that perfectly,” he crowed. “Earth words are easy? Your tongue glides over the syllables? Because it is sadly biased and should be taken to task. Remind me to task your tongue a bit later,” he said, nudging her with an elbow. 

She snorted, suppressing the urge to blurt, “Say no more.” 

He was already well launched into the lecture. “Chatoyancy. Eye-shine, shimmer. Like tiger's eye. Not the cat. The gemstone. Although,” he stretched the qualifier like taffy, tipping his head to the side, “I suppose to be fair...the cat, as well.”

“I have cat eyes?” Rose said, thinking of yellow slits and sounding a tad put out.

“Wolf's eyes,” he corrected, staring into them. “What big eyes you have, my sweet Rose! The better to see me with? How they gleam! How they challenge! There is something of the wolf in you, still” He continued in a hushed tone, “Something watching...waiting, drawing me in...closer...and closer,” he inched toward her, keeping eye contact. “They mate for life, wolves,” he said, his lips brushing hers. 

“Sir? Madame?” the pop-up waiter said, breaking them apart. “I regret to inform you that...”

The Doctor held up one finger. “Wait...wait...” he ordered, “Don't tell me...someone has complained about our snuggling?”

“For the sensibilities of our guests, we have a strict no contact policy during mating season, sir.”

“People are having sex all over your beaches,” Rose said. “And in the streets.”

“Clubs,” the Doctor prompted, from the corner of his mouth as he reached for another fried pypwsea. He was starting to really enjoy himself. Rose looked amazing, fantastic. And smelled even better. She gave off a heady, pervading scent, hot and sensual. It brought to mind stark memories of her naked, straining flesh. He wanted to be in that room again. Fucking her. Yes, he thought, thoroughly pleased with himself, that was definitely the verb he would use. 

“And in your clubs. And you want us to...”

“Be that as it may, Madame, here, at the Breakers, we cater to a certain off-world clientèle,” the waiter continued. “They come here to dine, peacefully, to escape the revelry of the street, the unbridled passions. Such displays are often distasteful to them. If you cannot control your impulses, we have specially designed alcove tables...” he nodded toward the kitchens. 

“You have a snogging section!” Rose exclaimed, catching his drift. Twisting in her seat to follow his line of sight, she saw a series of curtained booths near the back of the restaurant. “Why didn't we know about those?” She swiveled back to cast a suggestive glance at the Doctor but her darting look missed its mark. She found him pale and distracted. He had a white-knuckle grip on the table edge as he stared, glassy-eyed at his meal. Alarmed, Rose said, “Doctor?” Her hand instinctively tented over his, protecting, comforting. But he shuddered and drew into himself as she touched him. “Doctor, are you...sick?”

“They aren't fresh,” he said, in a hollow tone. “The pypwsea”

“They are most certainly fresh, sir,” the waiter objected.

“Oh, Rose,” the Doctor sighed regretfully. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”

“What? What is it?” She glared at the waiter. “What have you done to him? If his food is bad...” she let the threat hang in the air. 

“No, it's fine,” the Doctor panted. “I'm fine. It's just...poison.”

Clutching his arm, Rose yelped, “Poison?” on a strangled gasp. She met the eye of the equally mystified waiter and repeated, “Poison?”

“Pypwsea,” the Doctor clarified, “are poisonous to my people.”

“What?” Her voice cracked. “But...why would you order...?”

“The Breakers are not responsible for any...”

“You told him they were fresh,” Rose snarled, showing teeth. The hapless waiter fell back a step in the face of her fury. “If you've poisoned him, I swear, I will...separate you into your component atoms, leave your hotel in a smoldering heap...” She shivered at the direction of her thoughts and cut short the confrontation, turning to console the Doctor.

“Not deadly,” he whispered, when she crouched before him. “At least, not in this quantity. So...no swearing. No, worries. I just feel very,” he puffed out an exhale, “alive.” Focusing, he blinked at her and then glanced up at the waiter. “These were freshly shelled?” he asked. “You saw it?”

“Absolutely, sir.”

“Something else, then...the fried ones? The sauce? Something dried...or...”

“The tempura batter,” the waiter mused, his brow wrinkling. “The chef claims to have a secret recipe. Perhaps he enhances the flavor...”

”Perhaps. Yes,” the Doctor said. “Could you find out? There's a good fellow. Best to know how much I've ingested.”

The waiter vanished as abruptly as he usually arrived. “Doctor?” Rose whimpered, gripping his elbow fiercely. “Why would you do this? Eat something that could hurt you?”

“I didn't want to let on,” he said, peering at her. He gulped for a moment before going on, “They're palliative. I thought they could help with...” he shook his head, starting over, “Help me understand the human sexual experience. Like the artificial genitalia? It doesn't hurt, actually. It's rather like a drug. Like you’re taking homeopathic Belladonna for a cold. Clears the nasal passages. Pypwsea, clears the mind. Stops all that nasty white noise in the brain. Helps with...what? Focus. Yes!”

“You're not hurt, then?”

“No." He shook his head. "No...you see the beauty of this particular poison is the way it acts on my central nervous system: shutting down one function at a time in a predictable progression. A tiny dose, the sort I might get from a plateful of fresh pypwsea, simply knocks my Time Lord senses offline. Makes me good old Gallifreyan stock. No temporal or advanced telepathic awareness. I lose the ability to see around corners, to link with the TARDIS or infiltrate another mind. In the process, the primary senses, what for your species would be the reptilian brain...sight...touch...hearing grow more acute. Colors seem richer. Tastes more profound. Scents more enticing.”

Rose couldn't believe what she was hearing. “You did this to get high?” She sat, settling back into her chair.

“What? What? No!” He cast her a give-me-a-break look as he snapped, “No, of course, not. I wanted to...to...feel with my fingertips, to taste with my mouth. To stay out of your mind and yet, know your body. The way...Mickey or Jack or any male of your species might know it. That's why I purchased the Blue Label prosthetic, don't you see? To give you what you need.”

She stared at him with burgeoning understanding as he studied her solemnly, his large, dark eyes luminous and yearning for her understanding. She wanted to shrink from the truth she saw in his face but, instead, spoke it aloud. “You...you did this for…me? Took poison?”

“For us,” he corrected. His hand came up in the narrow space between them. Cupping her face in his palm, he used his thumb to caress her cheek. “I was too rough with you, earlier, pushing my way into your mind, going deep before you were ready. My people know the mind before they can know the body, Rose. It's instinctive. Your people are the opposite. I wanted...I just...” he closed his eyes, sighing, “I was too rough. There's no excuse for it.”

“But it wasn’t your fault,” she protested. “I was the one who insisted on...rushing.”

“It’s not about fault, Rose. It’s about instinct. Base, violent. Alarming. I wanted to possess you, not please you. Truly, I had no idea that could happen. No idea I could…feel so...so...wanton.”

Much of her heart-pounding fear for him had bled away as he explained. She was gripped, now, by a lightheaded sense of relief. Bolstered by the fact that he didn't appear to be getting worse, she started to relax. As she leaned into the curve of his hand, her glance bounced from his pleading eyes to the congealed plate of tree slugs. 

“But…poison…?”

“I won’t hurt you,” he said, determined brows angling together. “Or force you to hurt me. And I won't seek a…a…surrogate.” Taking an audible breath, he let his fingertips glide along her jaw, across her lips and fall away. His hand folded to his lap, as, hearts breaking, he asked, “Would you rather we just...gave up?”

“No...I...” She needed him too much. They were part of each other, now. The only way they could resist consummating this union was to live separately and she couldn't bear to leave him. Rose shifted in her seat to face him squarely. “You wanted to...have me, yeah? Like a...a craving...or a...addiction?” He nodded once, head lowered to avoid her expected rebuke. “You didn’t want to stop what we were doing? Stop making love?”

“No,” he whispered. “I could feel your fear…I could…” He darted a quick peek at her. “I can't go to someone else, like Omega did. At least, I don't think so. I thought about it for a long time, afterward...but, I don’t…I mean…just thinking about it made me come over all...queasy, yeah?” To his surprise, Rose didn't turn immediately jealous but instead appeared to be suffering some kind of apoplexy of snorting giggles. 

“Tell me you're not dying,” she demanded, in the midst of this inappropriate sputtering.

“I don't see why you're,” he began snappishly, “I mean, I hardly feel this is the time to start braying with laughter.” Wrestling with a score of unpleasant emotions and alarming physical sensations, the Doctor shot an injured glare in her general direction. “There is nothing funny about my feeling so very...strange. I...now, look here, Rose. I'm not dying but I think you might show a little more concern for my...” With a fretful little whine, he interrupted himself to exclaim,“I...oh, God, now, I'm throbbing,” he glanced down at his zipper. Every one of his heartbeats pulsed, no, hammered in his groin. “That can't be right. If this thing has malfunctioned on top of everything else... Look...what's so funny?”

“Me…you…us,” Rose gasped, trying to gain control of herself. “You going to extremes. All my wasted jealousy.” She managed to contain her hysterics. Facing him, she pushed his plate away with one hand while the other went to his brow. She combed his fringe to the side, threading her fingers into his hair and down to curl behind his ear. “You could find someone else, yeah? But you don’t want to?” Her question brought his chin up. Holding her gaze, he silently, emphatically, shook his head. “Me neither,” she said, letting go of him. “So, that’s settled. Now, you're...throbbing?” She cocked a brow as she dropped a quick glance to his trouser front. 

“Yes, I...uh...I started noticing your dress...how it clings...and...” He shoved his chair back, so his ravenous gaze could devour her whole. “My god, you're stunning tonight,” he declared, surging to his feet. “Well...every night. But I think the poison is enhancing everything. Your curves are curvier. Your coloring? Bright gold and pink. And I can, quite honestly, say I have never seen a sexier dress. No...wait...I'm lying. Cleo had one, gold mesh...showed her asp...but this one...is just so...” He spread the fingers of his right hand open, grasping for an adjective, “promising. Silky and sleek and...” he gave a heartfelt, lusty growl which surprised him even more than it did her. Looking as startled and apologetic as a pastor who'd just belched during a eulogy, he sank mortified into his chair. A second later, he doubled over as if in pain. “Quicksilver...mercury...sinking into my skin...permeating my cells...Rose?” he inquired in an abstracted squeak. 

“Doctor?”

“Did I just call you sexy?”

“Yeah...” she breathed. “Or the dress. Are you poisoned?” Fear stab into her heart again. He mumbled something she couldn't quite make out. Shifting closer to him she said, “I didn't get that. You're...what?”

His head came up. “I think...I'm having...an erection,” he announced baldly in a carrying manner, his expression one of delight and amazement.

“Oh, really! Waiter? Our check, if you please,” the lady with the unfortunate hat demanded in an equally stentorian voice. Her outraged expression sent Rose into snickering convulsions again. 

This evening, with all its trappings of disaster, simply could not shake her ebullience. She couldn't remember the last time she'd laughed so much. She knew she was being insensitive, but once she'd been assured the Doctor wasn't dying, the whole situation struck her as adorably absurd. He'd done this to himself. To please her. And now...apparently...he was having an unexpected erection. Judging by the look on his face, he'd never had one before. Did that make him a virgin? Despite all his sexual experience?

“Apologies, sir? Madame?” the pop-up waiter said, popping up in the way they'd started to expect of him. “The chef has admitted to using dried Pypwsea in the tempura batter. No more than a jorli egg's worth.” Using one fingertip, he drew a very small circle in the palm of his other hand to indicate the amount.“We regret the unfortunate misunderstanding and hope you take no permanent harm. Of course, your meal is gratis. If we can offer you any assistance?”

“Do we need assistance?” Rose asked the Doctor. He shook his head, but she pressed him. “A physician? A stomach pump? An antidote? A lawyer?” A blow job she thought and had to press her lips together to hold in the snicker. 

“I'm fine,” he said shakily. “I can easily absorb that much. But...I'd just like to go...lie down for a bit.”

Rose passed this on to the waiter and he saw them to the door. They exited with sedate steps. No bouncing, no peals of laughter. But the offended stares of the other guests dogged them to the lobby. Rose helped the Doctor across the lobby, one arm around his waist, as he was having a little trouble walking upright. 

“Try not to think about sex,” she said, close to his ear. “Think about...the Slitheen or the Jagrafess. Or Daleks.”

“It's no use if you keep whispering in my ear,” he told her, testily.

“Sorry,” she murmured, edging sideways to give him some room as they entered the lift. Thankfully, there were no other passengers on board. As the doors swished closed, she shut the safety fencing and added, “And I'm sorry for laughing, before...I know it's hard,” her eyes flashed with dangerous humor but she cleared her throat noisily and corrected to, “difficult...on you being suddenly, so overcome...ah...wrought...” she dared not go on. They were silent for a time, watching the slow rise of the lift through its safety mesh.

After a long pause, he continued her thought. “My being so...hot...horny...hard?” he prompted as, with a show of his usual good spirits, he elbowed her gently. “Other words beginning with that breathy “H”...honestly, it's rather...humbling.”

“Humbling?”

“Well...Time Lord,” he said, with a tiny shrug as they stepped out at their floor. “Live 900 years, you start to think you're above it all. Not really subject to physical whatsits...urges...limitation...imperatives. I can go without food for weeks. Or water. Even air, in a pinch. I can cheat death at its very doorstep. But suddenly I'm being ordered about by a ruddy artificial appendage.” He sighed collapsing against the frame of the room door and glared down at his zipper where a telling bulge still lingered.

“Well, it's not like we can't do something about it,” Rose drawled. She held out her hand. “Key?”

“Do you mind if...?” he began, earnestly, his glance beseeching as he rummaged in his pocket for the door pass. “I...I mean...I don't know how I'll react...or...really...what to do...exactly...”

Surprised by this stumbling confession, Rose took the card from him and unlocked the door. “I thought you'd done this before. Orgies?” She reminded him. “And you knew what to ask for with the bellhop. Aren't you an old hand with this Blue Label stuff?”

“Oh, yes...quite...I've done this before...” he said, nodding emphatically as he trailed her into the room. His restless gaze swept the apartment as he tried to avoid staring at the bed. “Just not exactly this. Not with you. And, quite frankly, the last time...the experience wasn't so...shall we say...so well-integrated? The Blue Label line really has mastered neurosync. This Tau Epsilon member is hardwired to my own arousal mechanism. My old one was a Delta, a real antique by these standards, several generations behind this model. I was expecting...recorded sensations, approximate responses. Nothing like this level of realism.”

“You've got more feeling this time?” she translated. 

“You could say that, yes,” he rushed out on a breath as he sank to the edge of the bed. “It's quite...distressing.”

Rose sat next to him, leaving just enough space between them so they didn't accidentally touch. Her skirt rode up a bit, flashing too much thigh as she kicked off her high heels. The Doctor stared down at her bare feet. She had a small corn on a middle toe and pink toenails. The latter struck him as odd.

“I've always meant to ask,” he said, as if making casual conversation, “Why you bother painting your toenails? No one sees them. You usually wear trainers or...boots.”

“You see them.”

“Yes, but do you honestly think I care if they're bubblegum pink?”

“No, I guess you don't care,” Rose admitted. She braced one heel on the other foot, elevating a set of toes for study. She wiggled them. “But having polished toenails makes me feel...pretty. Posh. Pulled together. And other words beginning with that hard “P” sound.”

“Pulchritudinous,” he suggested, resting his head on her shoulder as he, too, admired her pedicure. “Now, there's a word that doesn't sound like it should mean what it means, if you know what I mean. Pulchritude...Pulch...” he scowled, “No, I'm sorry...I can't like it...I think I'll call you splendid," he grinned, "or sublime...something soft and soothing.” As he spoke, he snuggled closer, nuzzling behind her ear while he simultaneously skimmed his hand along the bed. When his arm encircled her, he squeezed. 

Turning into his embrace, Rose settled one hand against his shoulder and the other on his knee, fingers caressing his inner thigh. He thought his flesh would liquefy under her touch, it grew so hot. Nerve endings started yelping for his attention. He could almost sense the Blue Label nanogenes springing into action, pouring into his veins to reconnoiter. Blood and, therefore, oxygen deserted his brain, rushing to collect beneath Rose's fingertips and flood the spongy tissue of the pulsing member he'd acquired. Only surely it couldn't, surely there was no blood going to it. His grip on consciousness seemed as fragile as spun glass, black spots danced before him. He didn't want to faint but felt certain he would if she didn't stop massaging.

“Rose...I...” He gulped, as her hand glided up his leg.

“Shhhh,” she breathed, into his gaping mouth. 

Her tongue lapped against his. They kissed. Not tenderly, but bruising hard. A brutal kiss, it acknowledged immediate craving, but was also impossibly profound. In the midst of it, Rose climbed onto him, straddling his hips as she settled on top of the insistent bulge in his trousers. It responded like an eager hound, jumping. The Doctor squirmed, appalled by the cascade of sensations this new position engendered. Needing something to hang onto, he dug fingertips into Rose's bare shoulder as his other hand wrenched the stasis combs from her hair. Blond tresses spilled around them, tickling their cheeks. He caught up great fistfuls of her hair. After combing through it a few times, he strayed, hands sliding lower until they found the small of her back. One lingered there, but the other went on to the silken hem of her dress...the bare skin of her thigh. Reversing direction, he followed her natural curve upward in a long, slow exploration. Gripping the swell of her bottom when it filled his palm, he held fast, anchored. 

She murmured encouragement, wriggling until he tensed his hand again. Ah, that was it. She shivered appreciatively, her mouth sliding wet against his parted lips. Her own hands were occupied with his shirt. She splayed her fingers across his chest and stomach. He couldn't get enough of her touch. Or her flavor. He drank it in, sipped it from her tongue. Soft flesh pressed into his collarbone, reminding him of other delights he might savor. Breaking out of what had really been one long kiss, he nibbled his way down Rose's neck to the valley between her breasts. When he licked there, she jerked upright, sat taller. Her fingers left him and worked busily at the side of her dress for a few seconds until the shimmering material fell away, exposing puckered mauve peaks. Seeing no reason to resist, he tasted them. Just a tiny flick of his tongue tip to her skin, but the affect was magical. Rose gasped, body arching as she ground into him, hitting his...well...his cock, he supposed...at just the right angle to satisfy it. 

“Yes,” he said, decidedly. “You should be on top. Like this. Exactly...like...”

“I will,” Rose agreed, bringing her chin down to stare into his face. “Take your shoes off,” she ordered already busy peeling the jacket from his shoulders.

“My shoes?” She gave him a sharp look of inquiry and he caught on. “Oh., yes...my shoes. For my trousers. For your...yes...shoes...off...”

For someone with limited experience, he did a rather good job, he thought, of divesting himself of his clothing, while keeping Rose occupied. The only spot of trouble he encountered centered on his socks. Though he used his toes like fingers, and rubbed against the edge of the bed, still the socks clumped around his heels and would go no further. Noting his distraction, Rose peeled away from his lips and glanced down. Seeing his difficulty, she shimmied out of his grip and flowed to the floor to assist him. Socks dealt with, she removed the trouser hobble from his ankles by lifting his feet up and over, one by one. This spread his legs wider than he liked, exposing his recently acquired manhood to her intense scrutiny. The length of it appeared to fascinate her. She pressed up onto her knees to study it more closely. Her breath tickled through the hairs on his upper thighs. 

“That's amazing,” she said. 

“Do you like it?” he asked brightly, like he was showing a piece of artwork which had caught her eye. “Eight inch, tapered,” he told her. “I thought the nine a bit...ostentatious. This one seemed more versatile.”

“It looks so real.” Cupping a hand around it, low, she slid her thumb back and forth over skin saturated with nerve endings. He managed not to squirm, though he'd never felt more vulnerable. “Like you were born with it.”

“Uncircumcised,” he said, squeaking sound through his incredibly dry throat. “Wasn't sure what you preferred. I know Mickey was, but, you've seen Jack and I thought...always better to go natural...”

“It's beautiful,” she said. Altering her grip, she wrapped her fingers around the shaft near its middle and slowly guided the foreskin up and down in a toe-curling caress.

He couldn't believe how fantastic it felt, being in her hands, in her power. “Yes...well...that's...” She tightened her grip and he grunted, clawing into the bedding and scooting backward when she grazed him with the flat of her tongue. “As advertised,” he peeped. “Sensation-ah-ha---wise...” 

“Try to breath normally,” she said, and then she took him into her mouth. He could see it was only this artificial thing she was sucking, fondling, gently probing with her tongue, but it seemed like his entire being had been swallowed down. He was definitely circling the drain. 

“AGah...stop...” he gasped.

She relented, immediately. Releasing him with a final coy kiss, she settled back on her haunches to gaze contentedly upward. 

“Too much?”

“A bit,” he breathed, surprised he still knew how to inhale. He'd been panting too long. “Maybe we could (ah) take a break...get comfortable...have some fruit...” his voice cracked as, desperate for a distraction, he glanced around and fixated on his shopping bag.

“You want...fruit?” she asked, taken aback. “In the middle of...?” She gestured at his fully engorged member. 

The member itself told him, quite petulantly, to shut up. It certainly didn't want fruit. It wanted more of whatever the hell she'd been doing just now with her tongue. Exactly what she'd been doing only for a much longer time. And, it went on to inform him, if he had any sense at all he would get Rose on her back as soon as possible so they could plunder that sweet, moist cleft between her legs. They should be thrusting into her again and again...until she squealed with delight...and cried out in despair...drew her knees up and locked her ankles at the small of his back and... 

His orgasm announced itself like a 300-pound bouncer barging into a bar. No subtlety at all. A double pointed blade stabbed straight through his hearts. His muscles seized, his whole body convulsed and he fell backward into blackness.

The last thing he heard before fainting dead away was Rose muttering, “Oh, great.”

END THIS PART


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the Doctor out cold, Rose is left to putter about their room on Barcelona. Eventually, he comes back around and there is some good old-fashioned earth-style sex.

The Doctor was out cold again, and it didn’t take Rose long to figure out why. 

“Oh…great,” she muttered, pillowing her head on his knee, for a moment. 

Regret washed over her, seasoned by a dash of apprehension. It occurred to her, briefly, he might be suffering some lingering affect from the tree-slug poison. But seeing the easy rise and fall of his chest and feeling the reassurance of his pulse against her cheek, calmed her fears. He’d passed out after ejaculation the last time, too. It could be perfectly normal for Time Lords. Rose grimaced. If it was, it would definitely put a damper on any hope of post-coital cuddling. Maybe they should cuddle first. The Doctor would probably enjoy that. He was one of nature's born cuddlers.

She softly called this name, wondering as she did, if this really would happen every time he came. Receiving no answer, she sighed, stood and crossed, reluctantly and with much glancing over her shoulder, to the loo. She took off her earrings, studying her face in the full-length mirror. There were no more lurking ghosts in the looking glass. Only Rose. Slipping out of her dress, she draped it carefully over an empty towel rod, hoping the silky material wouldn't wrinkle. She removed her makeup and combed her fingers through her hair, fluffing it into disarray. The toilet stumped her for a few moments, but she worked out the mechanics with a little study. After using the facilities, she put on her new plaid pajamas and checked her reflection again. The flannel boyshort bottoms showed her legs to advantage and were a clever counterpoint to the big-buttoned, long-sleeved top. What a shame there was no one to appreciate how cute she looked. Returning to the bedside with a towel, she started dabbing at the wet spot on the coverlet. 

This was, Rose reflected, a far cry from the romantic evening she'd hoped for. Still, she couldn't help but recall the time she'd gotten very sick after eating some suspect space chips. The previous Doctor, almost a stranger to her then, had proved astoundingly compassionate when she'd gone green. After holding back her hair during her stomach's purging, he'd mopped up after her, washed her face and hands and, tucking her up in bed, generally cooed over her until she'd fallen asleep. Not even Mickey had been willing to tend her during bouts of violent illness. The least she could do in return was take care of the occasional wet spot on the bed. 

The Doctor twitched when she touched his thigh but didn't wake. Consequently, she was completely unprepared when, a minute or so later, he flailed wildly and, eyes still closed, scrambled to the center of the bed. 

“I don't want porridge,” he said in a peevish schoolboy sniffle, curling into a self-protective ball.

“Porridge?” Rose inquired, surprised. But he said nothing else.

Seeing him huddled there, looking helpless, his mouth sulky and hair totally disheveled, Rose experienced the oddest sensation in the center of her chest. A wall at her very core gave way. And, all at once, before the metaphoric dust could settle, she wanted a child. A son. His son. She'd never wanted children. Never dreamed of having them, even as a very small girl. Her mother's experience as a single parent had colored her views, making children seem a burden. Rose was the eldest of her generation and serious beyond her years. She'd been forced to babysit and had had no patience for her cousins and their many childish ploys. But suddenly, she could think of nothing more fulfilling, more joyous, than dealing with the Doctor's son on a grumpy morning. When he refused to eat what she'd put in front of him, instead of scolding, she would hug him close, ruffling his hair until he looked just like his father, absolutely adorable.

As she absently set the towel aside, her thoughts strayed to Susan, lost somewhere in the past. She drew an unsteady breath, throat aching as she processed her conflicted feelings. They had a child together, she and the Doctor. They just couldn't reach her. Rose recalled the bittersweet memory of carrying Susan. She'd been pregnant for all too brief a time, less than forty-eight hours. And too overwhelmed, too frightened, to take much joy from the experience. But perhaps she would get another chance. It was certainly something to think about, to discuss. Maybe she and the Doctor could work out their parental differences. They'd begun to compromise, lately. Had he really meant what he'd said about settling down, buying a house? If not, could she leave her son in another woman's care? She’d already taken that step with Susan, it seemed, though unwillingly.

The Doctor had lost so much. Learning Susan was his biological daughter, only to lose her again, had been the latest in a long series of devastating blows. Rose didn’t want to cause him any more pain. She would just have to be very careful. Be absolutely sure she was ready before suggesting they start a family. She studied his face and, almost against her will, silently mouthed, “I love you,” tears pricking the corner of her eyes. He didn't hear her, didn't stir. But she felt better for getting the words onto her tongue. And, despite a quivering lower lip and the need to tip her head back and blink to clear her vision, she smiled.

While, she was gazing at the ceiling, he sleepily mumbled, “Quite right, too,” again, apropos of nothing.

Rose fought to suppress a snicker. She'd changed her mind about waking him. He'd had a pretty stressful evening. They both had. Good thing she enjoyed rollercoasters. Life with the Doctor seemed a series of giddy highs and terrifying plunges into the unknown. Peaceful moments like this one were rare. Though, being unexpected, it was still part of the ride. 

Locking her fingers together, Rose stretched her arms above her head and bent at the waist, working the tightness out of her back. She felt pleasantly randy, but not desperately keyed up. Her earlier arousal had been muted by laughter and a bit too much wine. She decided to putter about until she felt sleepy and then go to bed. They could spoon up tonight and start fresh on this love making experiment in the morning. Accordingly, she explored the room. 

She searched for and found a light blanket to drape over the Doctor. He sighed when she covered him, snuggling into the warmth. Crouching by the bed to tuck him in, Rose took a moment to admire the Cupid's bow of his lips and the sooty fullness of his long lashes. Why did men always have such lovely lashes? she wondered. Such flawless skin? Finished smoothing the blanket over him, she ran three fingertips around the curling outer shell of his ear. He smiled in his sleep, inspiring her to ease close and tenderly brush her lips along his brow before leaving him to his rest.

Rose lived for action. It wasn’t easy on her being cooped up in a strange room on an alien world with nothing much to do. She didn't even know what buttons to push for room service. Poking about for some quiet pastime, she focused first on the Doctor’s shopping bag. Rummaging in it, she found and extracted one of her anniversary bananas. Her stomach rumbled its approval. What with tree slugs making her nauseous and the Doctor keeping her alternately amused and alarmed, she hadn't eaten enough dinner. The banana was good. Though smallish, it turned out to be creamy and delicious. She washed it down with a bottle of sparkling water from the mini bar. Then, she opened and consumed a small packet of nuts, all the while hoping the bar tab wasn't going to be as outrageous as it would be on Earth. 

Eyeing the universal remote, she thought about turning on the telly, but decided it would make too much racket, especially, if she had to figure out volume controls and settings in a hurry. She might accidentally lower the walls or set off the sprinkler system and flood the place. Too bad the designer hadn't used a language instead of the supposedly universal pictographs. Languages the TARDIS could translate. Who the hell came up with these “neutral” symbols, anyway, Rose wondered? Even on Earth she was frequently stumped by them. Inspired by the indecipherable buttons on a photocopier they'd once come across, she and the Doctor had begun a running game of “guess what this one stands for.” At present he had the lead with forty-three correct assumptions to her forty.

She opened drawers and cabinets but discovered no books or magazines hanging about – not even an intergalactic Gideon's Bible. There was a product manual from Nanorganics, Ltd. in the Doctor's shopping tote. But she put off tackling it for later and, retrieving her cell phone, went out onto the balcony for a breath of fresh air. It was a lovely night, moonlit and mild. Four floors below couples were dancing in the street. Rose watched the festivities for a time, pondering whom to call. 

There weren't too many choices open to her. Thumbing through her saved numbers, she spotted Mickey’s and swallowed against a sudden tightening of her throat. She wondered what he was doing at this very moment and if he had the same cell number in the alternate universe. Or would he be using her old phone? Since, there was no Cybus Industries on Barcelona to link her to the Internet, she couldn't surf the web. She thought about phoning her mum but didn’t feel up to it. In the past, at a time like this, she would have called Shareen, but there was a great gulf of tangent experience between them now. Contemplating the many reasons behind her estrangement from her old life, Rose continued to page through her address book. A number flashed past and she quickly hit the back button to return to it. 

Before she could reconsider the impulse, she'd thumbed enter to dial the number. While the phone checked for a signal, she glanced over her shoulder, feeling a pang of guilt. The Doctor might not approve of this, and maybe it wasn't a good idea, but she couldn't stop herself. She needed to talk to somebody. There was a faint ringing on the line and then a boy's voice said, “Hello?”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Rose mumbled in confusion, “Must have the wrong number. I’m looking for a Miss Smith? Sarah Jane Smith?”

“Hang on a mo’,” the boy said and she heard him yodel, “It's for you.”

Sarah Jane’s voice called back, “Who is it?” at what sounded like a great distance but couldn’t have been because she immediately picked up the line and said, “Hello? Yes, this is Sarah Jane Smith; may I help you?” into Rose’s ear.

A prickling of apprehension raced up Rose's spine. She considered ringing off without uttering a word. What had she been thinking, calling Sarah Jane from here? What could she say? I’m alone in a hotel room with your ex. He passed out after a blow-job and I’m a bit bored. Thought I’d give you a ring and ask if this ever happened to you. It was mad and horridly insensitive. Rose knew the pain of jealousy too well to wish it on anyone else. 

Sarah Jane spoke into the silence. “Hello? Is anyone there?”

“It…it’s Rose,” Rose blurted. “Rose Ty…” 

She got no further. Sarah Jane interrupted her, practically yelping in delight. “Rose! Oh, how extraordinarily odd. I was just thinking about you yesterday. Wondering how you were. And here you are. How are…how is...” Her voice took a somber turn. “You are all right, aren’t you? Not somewhere on the side of the road in Scotland or anything? He wouldn’t do that to you, I’m sure. And I say that with the absolute minimum of cattiness, you know? I just can’t see him doing it, somehow. Not to you. But if he has, I’ll…”

“No, no…I’m fine,” Rose reassured her, letting a smile color her tone. “We’re both fine. We’re on a planet called Barcelona. Have you ever been here?”

“Barcelona? Oh, who knows? You, of all people, understand how it is with the Doctor. Everything just blurs together into a montage of running for your life and laughing ‘til your ribs ache. I’ll say this much. I can't recall the name. Of course, the names change over the eons, don’t they? We visited a planet once that the locals dubbed New Bridgeport – came back later to find they were calling it New Brighton. And they had no beaches at all. No oceans even.”

“This one is nothing but beaches,” Rose told her. “And every one of them sea-to-seawall in writhing natives. Mating season. Can you imagine?”

Sarah Jane laughed, “Well, if I was thirty years younger, I don’t know that I’d mind that. My, he does take you to the interesting places. We didn’t do so much as a single mating season in my day. So what's the weather like?” 

“Balmy, breezy. There are three moons. Two green ones and one that's huge and blood red, lurking near the horizon.”

“Don't the topsy-turvy colors just boggle the mind?” Sarah Jane sighed. “Green moons and lemon yellow skies and purple grass. Sometimes it's just too much to take in. We went to this one planet where the water was inky black.”

“Ferrluqynia?”

“That's it,” Sarah Jane laughed. “Never say you've been there, too. Did he give you the spiel about the water being loads better for you than regular Earth water?”

“Yeah,” Rose chuckled along with her. ”Because all that algae is chock-a-block with minerals and protein and such?”

They chattered on in this fashion until a squabble between two of what Sarah Jane called her 'junior investigators' drew her attention away. Before she rang off, she asked for Rose’s number and promised to call in a few days when the children weren’t forced indoors by heavy rain. Rose wanted to ask about the children, a new development as she understood it, but decided it could wait for another day. She said her goodbyes and flipped her phone closed, grinning. It had gone far better than she ever would have expected. They might have been best friends instead of rivals. Which made sense in a way. Because, of course, they weren’t really rivals. Sarah Jane had her own life. Rose was here with the Doctor. And without the Doctor's favors to distract them, they were just two people with loads in common. Maybe that was the secret: take out the middle man. Next time she visited London, Rose resolved to just sneak away for a lunch date with Sarah Jane. 

Having had her fill of night air and conversation, Rose headed indoors. After putting her cell phone away, she fished through the Doctor's shopping bag until she found the Blue Label product manual. It seemed impossibly thin to her. There were only six pages on three sheets of opaque plastic. Rose quickly read from cover to cover. The text stopped abruptly, mid-paragraph. As she turned the last page, a sense of peripheral motion and an almost imperceptible flash of light made her page back. To her amazement, new text was writing itself over what she’d just read. She flipped to the beginning and discovered the rest of the final paragraph at the start. The book simply kept filling the pages with more information as she turned them. 

“Oh, how…neat,” she peeped. 

Studying the book carefully, she discovered pressure sensitive controls for paging backward and forward through a table of contents. There were a number of interesting sounding chapters. She settled on the chaise lounge, drew her feet up under her and became absorbed. She was on page eighteen of the comprehensive guide to faux penises, reading the section entitled, 'Setting Your Password,' when the Doctor spoke again.

“My dear friend, Jamie McCrimmon once told me,” he began in his London accent, before switching to a Scottish one to go on, “There comes a time in a man's life, Doctor, when he's made such a richt bourach of things his only hope of salvation lies in his woman having a generous and forgiving nature.”

Lowering her book a few centimeters, Rose peered over the top of it. “Feeling better?”

“Feeling gutted,” he said, breezily as he sat up. He started to cast aside his blanket, but reconsidered at the last second, letting it drop back across his hips. “And you?”

Rose couldn't help but notice how his current posture caused a washboard tightness in his abs. “Oh...you know...” she sang, gesturing with an arm. “On holiday. Tra, la, la. Just lounging about the most romantic planet in the universe, enjoying a good book.”

His smile broadened into a fulsome grin. “Feeling generous?”

“Feeling informed,” she said, showing him the book title. “It's not what I was expecting. It's molded on?”

He crossed his legs, Indian-style, the blanket forming an island of modesty in his lap. “Yes, it's rather amazing, really, the process. They've made the most remarkable advances in nanorganic technology since I last tried one of these. My old Delta model's a regular antique. It sort of got pasted on over my own...ah, well...equipment. And there were sensors that tweaked me during the...the coming together...as it were.”

“Gave you a bit of a tingle?”

“Something like that. But this...” Gesturing at his lap, he shook his head in admiration. “It was cast around me. I'm literally part of it just now. Or...rather, it's part of me.” He pondered which for a moment before going on, “The process, as you've no doubt learned, I imagine, is extraordinary. The artificial flesh comes out of a tube...like hair stuff, goop, mousse, no, gel,” he said, brightly. “That consistency. Gooey, if you want the technical term. Once I'd chosen a style, the technician programed the nanogenes and the goop solidified into the size and shape I'd requested. That would have been that, back in the day. But now more nanogenes get injected into the bloodstream. Needles,” Tensing his jaw, he put on a prune face and shuddered. “Where they set up a harmonic resonance with the gel below...so, you've got a...well...a phallis...completely integrated with the nervous system, circulation, respiration, assorted reproductive organs. It may be the pypwsea talking, but I'm all atwitter with it. Given it's relatively small size, it takes up an disproportionate amount of my physical and mental resources.”

Rose smirked. “Yeah, lots of guys feel that way. But maybe,” she mused, stroking the back of her fingers along the underside of her chin, “it's just a little too sensitive.” She sat the manual aside, unfolded her legs from beneath her and stood. 

The Doctor frowned. “How do you mean?”

“Well, you did pass out.” She wasn't bitter about it, just matter-of-fact. “Is that normal for Time Lords?” 

“I suppose I did,” he admitted, ruefully rubbing a palm along the back of his neck. Then, he sniffed in annoyance. “And, how should I know what's normal? Who can say? But," his mood shifted again, softening, "apparently it's not something Miss Manners would like, hey?” He tipped his head back, pensively folding his lower lip over his bottom teeth before addressing the ceiling, “And I can see why. Was a bit gauche. Not what's done. Hardly a perfect union if one of the parties is dead to the world and the other one is left on her own. Still, we are not undone,” he pronounced, dropping his chin and blinking owlishly at her for a moment before continuing, “I think, I'm getting the hang of it all, in point of fact. With a little more practice I might manage to hold my own... Stay with you. Keep my senses throughout. Hmmm?” Compressing his mouth into a playful line, he waggled his brows suggestively. “Tell you what,” he said, clicking the 't' sounds. “Let's give it another go. I promise...I'll pay closer attention to the nuances. And I won't pass out.”

Though nothing but his complete rejection would stop her from giving it another go, Rose pretended to consider his offer. It bought her a little time. Aware of an odd fluttering in her stomach, she had turned uncharacteristically shy, as if he were a stranger. In a way, she supposed, he was. Certainly, their next encounter would break new ground for both of them. She might have to take the lead in the dance. She didn't mind being on top. But she wasn't exactly an experienced courtesan like some people she might mention. She'd made a play at seducing Jack, but most of the guys she'd dated needed very little encouragement to get started. Now, she was going to be representing human sexuality to another species, to the Doctor. The prospect was daunting.

As if he was reading her mind, a tentative smile courted the Doctor's lips. It never quite committed, but only enticed, as he tilted his chin up. Rose was generally charmed by his dimple, but found the cold weight in her stomach kept her from melting this time. She was as jittery as an actor about to go on stage after receiving very mixed reviews. So far they'd had three false starts on physical pleasure. Maybe they should just wait until the Doctor recovered his dreaming seed ability and have good old, Time Lord-style, imaginary sex. Debating what to do, Rose continued to hold aloof until the Doctor began to fidget. His gaze sharpened and filled with wicked intent. If she wouldn't come to him, his set expression told her, he'd be coming to her. 

Feeling wanted, at least, she smiled and rocked up on her toes. He leaned toward her, poised to strike and exerting a relentless magnetism. It was like gravity pulling an outgoing tide. Waves of encouragement splashed against the back of her legs. The pressure built behind her calves, but she managed to stand firm as he siphon the metaphoric beach from beneath her feet. Toes turned inward, knee flexed, she swayed, staring at him through lowered lashes.

It took the Doctor a moment to realize who she reminded him of defying him, while chewing her lip like a bashful little girl. It came to him suddenly. She looked like Susan, at about fourteen. Susan, determined to visit Earth and find her parents, had, it turns out been the very image of her mother. She'd had the same generous mouth and bright eyes, the same strong jaw. And he'd been putty in her hands. If only Rose would agree to convergence, again. They could have another little girl, or two, or six – a family. He was certain they could work out some equitable child care plan. All it would take was a little conversation, a little patience.

Of course, Rose didn't seem too willing to get things started.

“Come on,” he said, patting the bed, encouragingly. “Come here.”

“Is that a good idea?”

“Maybe not, but it's the only one I have at the moment.”

“I don't want to...tax you,” she teased. “You are over 900.”

“Tax me?” he said, drawing himself up in mock outraged, “Tax me? I'll have you know, 900 is barely middle aged for a Time Lord. We can live forever with...proper...” Worked up a little, he fumbled for the word he wanted, “Whatsit? Nutrition...care...risk management. I have astounding endurance and...and absolute control over my bodily functions. You remember the Sycorax cutting off my hand? Didn't see me wailing and weeping, did you? No! Saw it coming. Took precautions. Just because you happened to sneak up on me,” he inhaled as he added, “once or twice..” She was twinkling merrily at him, bright as a new penny. Drat her. He'd never know anyone so cocky. Except himself. Time to take her down a peg. “But...if you'd rather not risk it...I understand...we could watch a little telly, get some sleep.”

She held out a scant two seconds more, before slinking forward. Eyes fixed on his, every muscle tensed, as if she were about to bolt, Rose stalked toward the foot of the bed. The Doctor, afraid to break the expectant spell around her approach, remained very still as she climbed onto the mattress. She had a feral stealth, carefully placing her hands and knees. Enchanted, he watched her slow panther-crawl towards him. The performance gave him his second-ever erection. The sense of fullness and need took him by surprise but felt fantastic. He immediately wanted to put his new toy to good use. 

However, when Rose reached his side, she seemed thoughtful rather than carnal. Rotating her hip under, she dropped to her bottom next to him. She sucked on her lower lip as she met his eye. He nudged his shoulder into hers, his one hand lifting to playfully tug the lapel of her pajama top. 

“Oh, I like this,” he said, fingering the material. “Practical and becoming.”

“You like to touch,” she told him, easing her arm behind him to ruffle his hair. “Me, too.”

She petted him, stroking to his nape, and he hummed in wordless bliss. They became absorbed in one another, content to be fondled and, in turn, to caress. Each fascinated by the rediscovery of beloved details in the other. The Doctor expressed his love for two moles on the inside of her right ankle. Rose combed her fingernails through his bushy, oddly quirked brows. He slid a palm up her silky inner thigh, while his other hand toyed with her hair, separating it into broad, blond ribbons. Arm around his shoulders, she pulled him closer, nuzzling, and then kissing the point where his dimple would be if he smirked. Eyes sparkling, he eased away to flash the dimple. She tugged him back to her. Kissed him thoroughly, engaging his tongue and teeth, while the backs of her fingers brushed through the coarse smattering of hair on his chest. 

When she ran her nails across a nipple, the Doctor broke the kiss, gasping and shuddering. Both of his nipples throbbed as they hardened into nerve-saturated buds. Glancing down at them, and then, quickly up again, he tried to capture Rose's gaze but her veiled glance eluded him. He shifted to face her more squarely. Fingers finding the first of her pajama top's over-sized buttons, he nudged the plastic disc through its buttonhole. Then, he quickly moved on to the next and the next, revealing Rose's cleavage...her breastbone...and finally, her satin-smooth belly. 

She kept her eyes on her own handiwork, outlining his ribs, before visually and tactilely following the manly line of hair down his torso. When she reached his bellybutton, she skated one fingertip around the hollow, wondering again why he had a navel. Or nipples. Why he looked so human, hair to toenails. He'd once told her it was all optional. That he looked as he did only because he'd look funny in a swimsuit otherwise. It wasn't a very good answer. But then he had a hard time trusting anyone, even her, with complete truths. Skimming her fingers to the folded edge of his blanket, she swept her hand back and forth, pacing it along the woolly perimeter. 

The tantalizing tickle started him trembling. His eyelids drooped and his fingers stalled at her final button. Clutching fistfuls of her pajama top, he twisted the material this way and that. He couldn't seem to let go. Lifting her chin, Rose met and held his veiled gaze through a long, pregnant pause. Shivering, he waited for her to do whatever she planned to do next. She let him wonder. The tip of her tongue touched the very center of her upper lip. Just a taunt of pink before her hand plunged under his blanket. She'd let the tension build to a perfect crescendo. He twitched at the abrupt onslaught, but his cock went eagerly to meet her hand. It felt hot and heavy to both of them. When Rose hefted the silken weight of it, the Doctor emitted a breathy sigh. The sigh became a groan as the pad of her thumb found a pearl of oily moisture. Watching the play of emotions on his face, she slowly slicked the head of his shaft. 

Neck arched, teeth clenched, the Doctor struggled with the myriad sensations bombarding his brain, sensations inspired by Rose's expert handling of his new appendage. She lavished adoration on him. She knew just how to squeeze, just how to stroke. He'd managed to gain some objective control before she began pumping her hand up and down his length. After that, he floundered for a time in a sea of subjectivity. Finding her eyes, he held her gaze and tried to burrow into her mind through force of will. 

When that failed, he let go of her pajama top and knifed a hand along her jaw, lifting the golden curtain of her hair away from her face. He smoothed his thumb the length of her cheekbone. The illuminating effect of her perfume had worn off. She no longer glowed when he touched her. But she moaned, leaning into his caress. Her eyes closed. Her grip slackened. His thumb found her mouth and she drew it in to that warm, wet haven. Grazing, the slippery concave of her tongue, he began to connect with what he wanted from her. He mimicked the pumping rhythm she'd used on him, sliding his thumb in and out of plush heat. In need of oral gratification, she sucked eagerly, and with almost perfect abandon, as her blanket-shrouded hand went back to work on him. 

The nanogenes sparked in his veins. They set his blood simmering again. Tiny prickling shivers raced up and down his arms. While sharper spikes of pleasure targeted his spine and gut. Rising up onto his knees before Rose, broke her grip on him and let the blanket fall away. He didn't notice either had gone. He could still feel the ghostly grip of her hand and he wasn't cold. He burned. The tip of his cock nudged into her thigh, stealing all of her attention. She forgot about pleasuring him. Her hand braced against his hip as he slowly withdrew his thumb from her mouth. He kissed her, but not on the lips. On the forehead. On the tip of her nose. And, after tilting her face up, on her chin. Fingers combing into her hair, he angled her head so that, dipping low, he could focus on the delicate skin of her throat. Lightly abrading her with his teeth, he nipped and gently sucked, until the air between them became suffused with the scent of her arousal.

Rose fragmented when he bit her. Her reason began funneling away like the sands of an hourglass. There was a desperate clamoring in her head, blood surging as her heart-rate doubled. Her nipples ached. Her abdominal muscles hitched. Wave after wave of rich, slick fluid readied her. She clenched against the intimate wetness, the exquisite pang. Lust churned low in her belly. She wanted the Doctor inside, the full length of him, sliding deep. But he just went on and on, worrying at her throat. He'd stopped biting but only to flutter his tongue over every erogenous zone she possessed, jaw to collarbone. He was so close. His chest hairs brushed her nipples as he ran his tongue in one sensual stroke from her shoulder to just under her ear. Rose gasped and shivered, twisting her body to alleviate the yearning throb between her legs. 

Each petal-soft poke of his arousal to her thigh or stomach, made her long to guide the full shaft home. She wanted the exquisite stretch of him filling her. When she could take no more, she rolled to the side. Skittering up the bed, she practically climbed the headboard, squeezing her thighs together in a desperate attempt to ease the building pressure at her core. With a triumphant "Ha!", the Doctor sprang after her, drawing her back to him by wrapping an arm around her waist. She offered no resistance but fell into him, slithering along his bare skin. He made a game out of wrestling her to the center of the bed again. They both laughed as they tumbled to the mattress in a heap.

“Don't fight it,” he pleaded into her ear. “Show me. Teach me.”

Rose drew away. “Teach you...what?” she asked, mildly. She tried to meet his eye but her line of sight slid inexorably downward. Fixated on the thing she needed most, she asked, “Don't you know what I want?”

He rolled his eyes. “Not that,” he snorted, levering up a bit to poke her in the ribs with one finger. “This isn't about that. It's about...union. Human sexual congress.”

“Well, when you put it that way...” Rose sighed, sourly. It all sounded too clinical to her, possibly even a foreshadowing of disaster. This wasn't some kind of experiment to satisfy his insatiable curiosity. This was serious. This was about caring for each other. She wriggled out from under him, lifting her chin as she searched his candid, somewhat hopeful face. She saw nothing in his eyes but tenderness and a willingness to put himself in her hands. The need to merge with him was almost more than she could bear, in any case. Why deny it? “Yeah,” she whispered, nodding, “all right.”

His beaming grin and joyful hum drove away any lingering doubts. He definitely wanted this as much as she did. If not for the same reason. Eager as a puppy but far more attentive, he asked, “What should I do, first?”

“You...sit up straight,” she instructed, “and put your hands here,” she guided his arms around her as she straddled him. The saturated flannel between her legs, teased and tugged at his sensitive flesh. 

He gasped, stiffening all over, before looking down, puzzled. “You're still wearing your jim-jams? I...I thought we were supposed to...interlock. I've always interlocked before. In your memories...in your mind...at the orgies...”

“Not yet. Later. How does this feel?” she asked, swiveling her hips to caress his full length, slick flannel sticking to him.

“Good,” he said, eyes misting over as he seriously considered her question. “Really...very good. Sort of slippery, yet clinging.” Rose shifted and ready understanding made him quiver. He rocked his hips into her. “Yes, I can see why we might do this...for pleasure.”

“You like to touch,” she told him for the second time. It wasn't a question. “Taste,” she said, lips brushing his. His tongue darted out, obediently tasting.

She parted her lips as he traced over them, allowing him moist heat. Like fencers crossing foils, they let their tongues meet briefly, and then, dueled with reckless abandon. He did like the taste of her. She tasted salty as the seas covering most of her world. Everything about the seaside reminded him of Rose. Of Barcelona. Of that day long ago when, in the heat of passion, she'd told him he tasted like forever. 

They were very close, skin to skin where her top gaped open and lower, where her inner thighs were powder-soft against his hip bones. She shimmied along him, silky and warm. He groaned. Oh, he liked that. Touch. Yes. There were so many points on her he wanted to, longed to, touch. His hands scrambled under her shirt and up her back. Reading his need for more contact, Rose shrugged out of her pajama top. With a little mew of delight, the Doctor broke from her mouth to pepper tiny kisses around the ball of one of her exposed shoulders. He loved her shoulders. Her breasts. Her arms. He loved her plump mound and the tight cleft within it. He longed to pierce her deep, to sink into the pulsating folds of her humanity. Past encounters had already told him about the passage she kept hidden. How wet and all enveloping it was. It might be nothing more than romantic fancy, but he thought it superior to any other sex his fingers or tongue had ever explored. He was eager to learn more about it. 

Molding her hand to the nape of his neck, Rose guided his mouth to her breast. His lips pecked their way across one puckered aureole to a pearled nipple. Rose hissed, bending backward when his lips plucked the pearl as a harpist might pluck a string. Head tilted to one side, he savored the affect he'd had, watched her straining spasm as it calmed. Then, with a single broad stroke, he licked her, curling his tongue to cup around the previously twanged nipple as he passed over it. 

The caress sent Rose into a bucking frenzy. Bright colors bloomed behind her eyelids and she tossed her head, hair fanning in a wild arch. She grunted as a fireworks display burst between her legs. The strip of cloth separating her from immediate satisfaction became positively drenched. She could almost feel the Doctor inside her, feel her flesh parting as he pushed into her. He'd drove a hand into the scant space between their hips, searching out the nub he knew would trigger full orgasm. Rose wiggled back a bit, encouraging him to knuckle aside soaked flannel and explore. He planed his elegant fingers through the strip of curls edging her slit, gathering wetness before spreading her gently. Locating the nerve center his books, and his remembered excursions into her mind, assured him would send her over the edge, he flicked it lightly. 

“Like this?” he asked. “Or slower?”

“A bit...faster,” she panted, writhing as he obeyed.

“Ah,” he said. “There we go.” She gripped both his shoulders and, head down, elbows locked, rode him hard, both of them picking up speed. Her desperate little cries sent puffs of steamy exhalation swirling down his chest. “Looks like that's done the trick,” he gloated, when she quaked, body whip-cracking, fingernails biting into his flesh.

Stung by his air of complacency, Rose snapped her head up. He saw the passionate fire raging in her eyes as she softly growled, “We're just getting started.”

Wrenching free of his grasp, she collapsed to the side and rolled from one hip to the other, shoving at the waistband of her shorts to send them to her knees. A kick of her feet sent the pajama bottoms sailing across the room. Her top followed in a fluttering arch. She'd straddled the Doctor again before he had time to process her going or come to grips with her irritation. 

His true companion fell naked and willing into his arms. His brain stem knew exactly what to do. Eons of evolution had programmed it to respond to proximity, especially full-body contact with his mate, with immediate arousal. It sent the impulse to his nematocytes. Against the hair trigger firing of neurons, he had his reason and a lifetime of negative conditioning. It wasn't much of a contest. Rose wanted union. His duty was clear. He didn't waste energy worrying about anything other than how quickly and completely he could merge with her mind. 

But the pypwsea had done their dirty, poisonous work. Despite his straining towards her, he and Rose remained separated. He could see her. Taste her. Feel her against his skin but he couldn't link their nervous systems. There was no way to get into her mind. He reached out mentally, but couldn't find her. His nematocytes stirred but could not fire. It was rather like having a well-known fact on the tip of the brain, just out of reach, frustrating and slightly alarming. What had he been thinking to cut himself off like this? Now, his only hope of union rested with the eagerly pulsating, but ultimately artificial, flesh he'd acquired. He doubted the experience would prove as satisfying for him as it would for Rose. But he wanted to learn what human sex was like, striving to be one and yet, never managing to be complete. He needed to know, so he could understand Rose and truly satisfy her. Their life together would never deprive her of anything, if he could help it. 

He watched, somewhat impassively, as she took his shaft in hand, guiding the tip of it to her core. He remembered this from before...from their first encounter on Barcelona....how she'd guided him in and he'd thrust deep. But this time she was clenched so tight, he could barely enter her. And he had so many more sensations. He skidded deliciously along her wet cleft, inducing a series of shivers in both of them. 

“Wait. Wait.” she told him. Though he wasn't moving. 

She shoved her palms into his chest, driving him to the mattress with her weight. When he was flat on his back, she levered up and eased down onto him. Eyes locked on his, she rocked her hips in a circle, slowly engulfing the head of the Tau Epsilon in rippling layers of silken tissue. Her initial resistance gave way suddenly and he glided easily into her sweltering sheath. Gloved in heat, feeling crushed by his emotions, the Doctor gasped for air, but his lungs failed him. He went blind for a second, too, and deaf, except for the pounding of his pulse against his ear drums. Great sections of his nervous system dropped offline so his complete attention could focus on Rose. Yes. He liked touching her. Inside most of all. He liked the tugging, squeezing, unbelievably slippery passage she'd stretched wide for him. She spread her legs further still, enveloping him to the last inch, until he was completely hers.

A fluttering in his chest made him wonder if his hearts were malfunctioning but it was only that her stone-hard nipples were teasing over his. She undulated lazily. He savored every exquisite shiver and minute pulse of her inner walls. Every slow roil of muscle, every shift of her weight seemed to reverberate up his spine to strike a gong in his skull. He arched into her, grinding the top of his head into the mound of pillows behind him. He had to claw into the covers to hold on to consciousness when she started humping, pumping up and down his length. It felt like...like nothing he'd ever felt before...ever imagined feeling.

Rose abandoned herself to the feelings, seeking her own bliss. She nuzzled along his jaw until she found his mouth. Her lips claimed his. They twisted into one another, licking and biting. Sucking his tongue, she writhed, going so liquid slick inside that, except when she intentionally clenched tight, there was almost no friction between them. Afraid one of them might slip away at any moment, the Doctor took her head in both hands, holding it still so he could plunder her mouth. Her rocking rhythm picked up speed as his kisses turned wildly demanding. She was using him now, intent on her own release It was coming. He could feel her tensing for it. With a heartfelt cry, she tore free of his hold, and away from his lips. Elbows planted on either side of him, she arched her back like a spitting cat. Then, head hanging low, mouth slightly agape, she rode him frantically. 

He responded to this shift from canter to gallop like well-trained mount, moving with her, using his weight to to anchor her excesses. Or alternatively, rising up to stay in contact when she bounced in the saddle. She mewed and moaned. Rivulets of sweat, sourced between her breasts. She grew as slick under his hands as she had last time they were on Barcelona. Needing to see it again, this well-remembered ardor, he opened his eyes, overjoyed to discover he hadn't actually gone blind. 

Rose ruled the space above him, riotous emotions playing out on her face. She looked so primitively beautiful, so beyond him, he could scarcely comprehend how they'd come to this point, how his rebellious and random travels had led to her wanting him. She could have had anyone in the universe, Mickey or Jack or Alexander the Great, as a consort, and yet she'd chosen him ( a rank amateur when it came to lovemaking ). Enchanted by her shining hair, heavy-lidded gaze and the moist sheen of her skin, he touched her, using senuous strokes to pet her. His hands gliding effortlessly over her shoulders, down her spine and around the plush cushion of her bottom. 

His nervous system reported in with an abundance of data, processing more physical sensation than he'd ever let it deal with before. Usually he remained aloof from violent sensory upheaval but this, this he waded into. Rose coming created a personal maelstrom of scent, sight, sound, taste, and touch. She was overheated and gasping, the inside of her arms felt baby-bottom-soft, her breasts were at once firm and yielding. The taste of her lingered on his tongue. The sound of her breathless keening rang in his ears. It was too much. “Rose,” he begged, between wet kisses. “Oh, Rose.”

“Wha's...that,” she gasped, velvety slick cleft milking his length, “What's that feel like?”

“Like you own me,” he admitted. 

She spoke with a throaty and amused burr against his earlobe. “Don't I?”

She did. Even unfulfilled, separate from her in mind and soul, he was completely hers. As he accepted it, something gave way within him. Something he'd been holding back from her without realizing. He found a new level of trust. There was no reason to resist any of this, no need to abstain from the messy entanglement of domestic bliss. His future was with Rose. He didn't need his Time Lord senses to be sure of that. She would be part of him forever, had always been part of him. He could trace their union back to his first meeting with Susan. All that was left to achieve was the metaphysical bond he'd read so much about, the tenuous union of two human souls during mutual orgasm.

Unfortunately, he'd been so preoccupied with all the new sensations that he was nowhere near a climax, while Roes was approaching one quite rapidly. She sat up straighter, hips bucking, liquid fire licking within her. Lifting the tangled mane of hair from her neck, she let it trickle through her fingers while she gyrated above him. She caressed her throat, pinched her nipples, and finally sent one palm sliding down her belly to the place where they were joined. Guessing her intent, he levered up on an elbow and offered his own fingers to help her over the edge. She went as soon as he touched her, coming violently. She whimpered at the back of her throat, thrashing as jolt after jolt of bliss rocketed through her. 

Blood seemed to evaporate in her veins, becoming hazy pink light. Eyes closed, she could see the neon glow of it. Finally, with a gurgle of satisfaction, she collapsed forward. Her Doctor enveloped her in a warm embrace, hugging her close as he rolled to the side, carrying her to the mattress. He turned to his hip to face her. They lay quietly, nose to nose. Both a bit awed by the intensity of their last encounter. Rose looked dazed. He gently combed damp strands of hair from her forehead, staring wistfully into her pleasure glazed eyes as she blinked at him and gulped much needed air.

When she could speak, she said, “You didn't get there.” 

“It was wonderful...amazing,” he assured her.

She shook her head. Her heart rate slowing with every breath. “What? Watching me come?” 

“Oh, yes,” he whispered, earnestly. “You're so...I enjoyed the...well, your...what's the word?” He nearly said savagery but, realized she might not understand his awe and corrected to, “Enthusiasm. And, also, you caused some remarkable sensations. I was throbbing. It felt fantastic...honestly. I'm quite content.”

“Content,” she sniffed. Wiggling back a few inches, she repeated the word in an almost outraged tone, “Content? You're feeling well enough, then?” 

He gave her his unruffled puppy-dog stare. The one she knew indicated he was aware of her upset, but also told her he hadn't a clue what had caused it. “Probably it's not realistic to expect anything more,” he ventured. “Even with this equipment. I need....”

“A mental connection?” she finished. 

“I know it's too soon,” he said. “And that's okay. I'm quite,” he searched rapidly for a synonym for content, “satisfied.”

“Only you're not,” Rose said. She scooted back, scrambling over pillows until she could brace against the headboard. Settling into a kneeling pose, she exhaled in a whoosh as tiny quivering aftershocks teased her core. “Whoa!” she puffed. “Yeah, good for me. In case you were wondering.”

Left behind in the center of the bed, he smiled, boyishly bashful, and hummed, “I was.”

She smiled back at him and opened her arms. “Come here,” she said. He obeyed, snaking closer, but found he couldn't fit his body to hers in that position. He let her turn him about so his back was to her belly, his head pillowed against her breast. “It's not about the physical stuff, you know?” she told him, once he'd relaxed into her embrace. As her hands slowly caressed his arms, chest and stomach, she added, “It's about trust.”

“Time Lords don't...” he began, only to have her shush him.

She brought her mouth close to his ear and whispered, “Yes, you do.” Her tongue lapped over each phrase as she went on, “You love. You want. You need. Now...trust.”

END THIS PART


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More sexy times on Barcelona. The Doctor and Rose play the "Who would make a good companion?" game. We've all played that one.

PART NINETEEN

“Trust me,” she said, raking stiff fingers through his hair. “Right now, be a man...like any other man I might meet on my world. We can't read each other's minds. You can't see the future around every corner. We can't know...each other...what's coming...anything. All we have is this.” She traced a large circle on his abdomen, and then another smaller circle within the first one. It took him a moment to recognize what she was doing. She was recreating a somewhat garbled phrase in his language. The very phrase he'd used to brand her shoulder earlier in the evening. “What does it say?” she asked, nuzzling into his sideburn. 

Her breath broke like a wave over the shell of his ear, setting off tiny seismic vibrations under his skin. He shuddered as mystical tremors pulsed through him, centering on and rippling across a pool of energy beneath his navel. There was definite biological activity going on as well. His throbbing cock squeezed out beads of slick fluid. He watched them tickled down his length, wax pearling from a burning candle. Rose's stroking fingers seemed to be everywhere as if she were multi-armed Kali. Fitting, he thought, as he was surely Kala, Lord of Time.

Impatient as a ticking clock, he fidgeted in her hold. He wanted to get on with things. His tongue demanded a warm, wet haven. His arms ached to wrap around yielding flesh. But he couldn't reach her without breaking free of her embrace. And she was teaching him a lesson about humans. Her hands left contrails of raw desire in their wake. He relaxed, molding his form to hers, and tipped his head back, to see her. But she denied him even this, shifting her shoulders to keep him centered. 

“Teach me this word,” she demanded, again.

Such sublime torture. She was torturing him, asking about the intricacies of syntax when the only mental images he could form were strobe light stills of flesh on flesh. He writhed – sinuously rocking his hips, needing to bury himself to the hilt in her again. This time he was sure they would come together. But he didn't want her to stop what she was doing. He wanted this lesson to go on and on, until he broke. He wanted to break, to be broken on her, by her. Then, he would do something to her in retaliation. He had no clear plan, as yet, about what he would do. But, he was the oncoming storm, rumbling in the distance, rattling the windows. 

“Forever,” he gasped, answering her query. “My people lack the concept. But...” he took a deep breath and pressed on, “This is...an approximation: perpetua, indeclinabilis, rosa.. My coat of arms, when I have a coat of arms,” he panted through a breathless chuckle, “shall bear this...as...as the family motto.”

She cupped his chin in the palm of one hand, holding him in place as she shunted from the waist to one side. When he'd slid down her arm, she tilted his head back so their mouths could meet. “The Eternal Rose?” she guessed, her lips moving over his, her tongue setting the words in his mouth. He thrust his tongue through the pretty phrase and into her silken heat. It slithered along the inside of her teeth, tasting her as he'd been longing to do for what seemed like hours. His fingers scrambled for a grip, seeking purchase on her smooth skin, in her silken hair. 

She slipped away, squirming free of his grip with a laugh as she shifted him to center again. “Show me how it works...your language.”

“Now?” he whined, huffing in disbelief. “You want a language lesson, now?”

“Yep,” she said, popping the “p” sound. She levered him forward suddenly and stretched behind him to retrieve the tiny bottle of luminous perfume from the bedside table. Before, he knew what she was about, she'd sprayed her belly, thighs and left hand liberally. An exotically clean and spicy scent filled the room and Rose, tossing the bottle carelessly aside, glowed again. “There's your whiteboard.”

The idea of branding her intrigued him, as much as it had earlier. Shrugging aside his impatience, he settled meekly back into the curve of her body, drawing her left hand over his shoulder as he did. He curled her palm into a cup before him, staring at it like he was a tea-leaf reader. Then he drew a series of five tiny interlocking circles in it. They were varying sizes. Two of them existed wholly in subset to the others, while the largest overlapped or encompassed the other four. 

“This is time,” he said.

“Which one?” 

“All of it...them,” he told her. “Time is a cluster of intersecting realms.” He hovered a fingertip over the largest circle. “This is now, all else will be relative. The subjective past,” he touched one of the smaller circles. “The future...” He moved over both of the subordinate circles. Then, began to draw again. “And the objective path.” He completed an oblong with two internal zig-zags, intersecting 'the objective path' and said, “Things change around every corner. Nothing is unchanged...eternal. Therefore, there is no concept of eternity. Nothing beyond the self. There is only subjective reality, translated. This,” he breathed, drawing the large external circle that contained every phrase she'd seen written in his language. “This means...I...the self. When you write anything in Gallifreyan...you refer to it as how you see or experience it.” 

“So if I want to write about an apple,” Rose said, frowning as she worked things out. “I don't say, 'the apple is red'? But...what? I believe the apple to be red?”

He hummed through a grin. “It's worse than that, really. You would say...I experienced what I believed to be an apple...as what I believe to be red,” he corrected. “And you must assign a time frame to it, of course, because apples, as we both know,” he paused briefly to kiss her wrist, “are not motorbikes.”

Rose snorted in his ear. “Will you be serious?”

“I am...totally serious. Well,” he made a face. “As serious as a naked, randy Time Lord can be in these circs. An apple would not be eternally red. It was once a seed, therefore...brownish...seed colored...and will one day rot to seed again.” He very gently touched the circle representing 'now' and then went on drawing in her palm. He drew two lines crossing through the inner circles and the outer one. 

“This is growth, flowers...any vibrant life,” he told her. “Two lines because all living things have an objective and a subjective existence. The lines are straight because all life has a genetically coded course to follow. But, the universe enacts change.” A series of flounces connected the two lines. “This is beauty. Whatever the object is...it has appeal. Normally such appeal would fade. The scalloped waves would be drawn smaller as we traversed the lines, vanishing as we passed from the now into the objective and subjective pasts. But here, I keep them even. This means their essential value is continually renewed.”

“The...beauty...the life never fades?” Rose guessed, feeling as if her brain was on fire. 

“Exactly. So,” he breathed, gesturing broadly above the glowing symbol in her palm. “Can you see it as a concept entire? It says...this hand...this person...this Rose...is...for me...eternal, existing in all facets of time, never fading...this is how I will see her, always and forever.”

She lay her head against his, tightened her arms around him. “That's lovely. Really...really mind-boggling. But...lovely.” 

Her afterglow was killing him. He nearly whimpered as his sex, rock-hard already, swelled just a bit more. There was a concept he could explain to her. He scooted to the side. Lifting his hips as he dipped his shoulder left, he listed in that direction. Her hold on him gave way and he rolled across the bed. A second later, he was up on his knees and lunging forward. He yanked Rose into his arms. She squee-ed as he swept her to him, across his chest and on over to her back. The speed of this maneuver carried them into a skid on the silken coverlet. They ended up crosswise on the bed, her hair showering off the edge of it, like ice rooster-tailing away from a braking speed skater.

“Let's learn how to write 'temptation,'” he said, fingers swirling over her belly, connecting lines and circles and squiggles. “Or better still,” he went on as he drew another symbol, “Satisfaction. Fulfillment. Convergence.”

What he was doing tickled. Laughing in the face of his intense glare, Rose sheltered her stomach with both arms but drew her knees up and open. Her sultry eyes dared him to take what she knew he wanted. His spitting snarl told her she had no idea what he would dare to do just then. He seized her wrists and carried her arms out to the side, pinning them to the bed as he shifted into dominance above her. Nose to nose, lip to lip, eye to eye with her, he panted through some very strong urges before willing himself to move back, let go of his bruising grip on her arms. He settled onto his haunches. Kneeling between her legs, he positioned his himself for one swift true thrust. Rose stared up at him in wide-eyed wonder, not frightened really but, also, not fully aware of what she'd gotten into by baiting him. 

Scooping his forearms under her shoulder blades, he lifted her easily. He levered her to just the right angle, her bare feet skidding on the silken coverlet. Then, he let her settle into the cradle of his body. Gravity drove his full eight-inches all the way into her. A jolt of pleasure rocked them both. Rose gurgled in surprise and clamped down hard, inner sheath wringing a sharp cry from him. Jerking and quivering, they both savored perfect fulfillment as Rose secured herself, locking her ankles at the small of his back to keep him close.

She was nearly weightless, malleable in his arms. But she wasn't submissive. She still had her mind in the game, while his mind was definitely befuddled by the incomparable joy of joining this way. Once again, he had the oddest sensation of being swallowed whole. Of being hers. Human women, he realized suddenly, could easily rule their world. They were all powerful in this. And this...sex...was so very important to their species. No wonder masculine aggression was so often threatened by it. 

Shimmying her hips, Rose managed to adjust his angles of penetration as he dipped her into this or that position. She staked her claim to him with her fingers and feet, breasts and mouth. For once in his Tenth life he didn't have a thing to say beyond the occasional groan or whisper of praise. 

In relative silence, they shafted, screwed and shuddered through three explosive surges of her rich fluids, getting sweaty and frenzied, tossing their heads back and mewling softly. Each time they approached the crest of a climactic wave, the Doctor let it recede away from him and flow over her. At one point, Rose hung half-off the foot of the bed, fingertips touching the floor as he took her upside down. Hands bracketing her hips, hammering into her, he lost all sense of himself as a separate being. He could remember nothing beyond this bed, this niche in space/time. Rose, who was all. 

She came. And he almost touched her soul as it wafted by him. But he remained unfulfilled. He couldn't reach her. It was driving him mad. He needed his nematocytes. He couldn't trust without them. Returning her gently to the pillows, he blanketed Rose with his body, cupping a hand at the back of her head to pull her close. Determined to cross the final bridge of vulnerability, he thought of the question he'd been longing to ask since the day they'd met. 

“How long?” he rasped, pumping ever so slowly in and out of her still quaking core.

She didn't answer, probably didn't even hear him. Certainly, didn't understand. She was making little kittenish noises. He stilled inside her, edged away, ever-so-slightly, to skim wide-spread fingers down her torso, worshiping her curves. She grew taut as a bow with this treatment, twitching eagerly, primed for release. He sang her praises, calling her beautiful and wise and sweet and his, as he braced his palms to either side of her. He pressed up on rigid arms, gaining leverage to stroke her slick channel. She arched, keening, as he brought their rolling climax to the pinnacle again. Grunting, nearly spent, nearly gone, he let the world topple over them. Rose whimpered in staccato through the avalanche of it, wrung out and gasping. Tremors rocked them both, aftershocks in the wake of too much quaking pleasure.

“Stay,” he managed to groan, while eking every ounce of sensual pleasure from these final profound moments inside her. 

Thirsting, desperate to be one in body, in mind. Only dimly aware of his subjective existence, he remained attuned to Rose. This was as it was before, in that squalid room they'd shared, in that bed where she'd made him hers, nearly 700 years before she was even born. He'd had no arousal then either, no way to join with her as he wished to join. He'd watched her strain and pant as he'd filled her with useless seed. 

The back of her head smacked the mattress, shunting aside pillows, as her neck muscles spasmed. Her mouth opened in an “O” and her shoulders bucked, but still she stayed focused on him. Her eyes grew glassy as her hands, losing their grip on his waist, fell palm up to the bed. She fluttered inside when he slid free of her, butterfly-wing shivers milking him to the end. He had nothing else to give. Yet, he thought he might die, yearning to be closer to her. This, he now knew, was what it meant to be human. To be always separate. To feel complete only during the briefest instant at the height of sexual congress. 

How did they live like this? Never knowing one another's minds and hearts? No wonder Rose felt jealous or insecure from time to time. That she could trust him at all was a marvel. Where did they find such flawless trust? He could never sustain it. Nor could he ever get his fill of her through flesh alone, he thought, as consciousness began to swirl away from him. Vision going black around the edges, he slumped into Rose's shoulder. But, remembering his promise to stay with her, he held on to awareness. 

He followed the curve of her throat up to her earlobe and asked again, “How...long...” swallowing a gasp, he completed the thought, “Will you...stay...with me?” 

He was done, certain they'd explored the limits of physical pleasures. Surely, he thought, this was what all the poets spoke of...this glorious peace. He'd pushed them both to exhaustion. Rose was shivering. His own body had gone numb, thoughts scattering. He seemed to have no more form or substance than a puff of smoke, yet Rose was solid in his arms as she rubbed her cheek along his and answered his question. 

“Forever,” she whispered, reducing him to his component molecules. She exhaled and with her next breath, absorbed him into her body...blood and bones and whirling awareness, she took him all in. He became a sigh in her mouth, nothing more.

With a single word, Rose introduced him to the human equivalent of true union. As he broke apart, her soul anchored his, pulling him down and down into blissful surrender. He floated in a bubble of airy light, drifting in and out of snapshot daydreams. It reminded him of the dreaming seed and yet, it seemed far more ethereal. Every nuance of their life together replayed before his mind's eye. Like the moment before death, he thought and wondered if that was why the French called orgasm 'the little death.' Here there was no fire of regeneration. Here there was only love. 

He didn't want to forget anything about this, ever, no matter how insignificant something might seem or how many times he regenerated. This might be as close as he would ever get to Heaven, but he would never again doubt its existence. Heaven was somewhere inside Rose. 

Head pillowed on her breast, he listened to her galloping heartbeat slow to a canter, to her labored gasping turn into easy exhalations. He remained awake, but only peripherally aware, acknowledging no physical reality beyond Rose's skin. He was content at the core. Sated. Eyes shut, muscles slack and unresponsive, he continued to be sublimely linked to Rose in the hereafter. Neither of them moved for a very long time.

Eventually, as it tended to do, reality reasserted itself. Rose stirred, seeking a more comfortable position when her leg feel asleep. He accommodated the change, toppling off of her without really coming back to his body. Some while later, hours maybe, the Pypwsea poison began to dissipate. His skin started tingling but he wasn't up to firing his nematocytes. He was too satisfied to be completely aroused, even by Rose's naked skin sliding along his. He wanted to be human for a while longer, anyway. To be her beloved. 

His reason returned at length, however. Its relentless churning prodded him to ask,. “What'd you mean by...'forever?'” 

Rose grumbled, sleepily, snuggling into the hollow of his shoulder, gently pummeling him in a parody of pillow fluffing. He snickered, hugging her closer. As she curled into a ball like a wilting flower, her knee rode along his thigh and lightly grazed his flaccid member. A throbbing sting cast him out of his reverie with a sharp, “Ow!” He sat up quickly, dropping Rose to the side. His first exclamation was followed by another, even louder one, when he touched the site of the discomfort.

“Wha...? Wha's...wrong?” Rose mouthed, trying to sit, but collapsing instead with a hand to her brow. “Oh, my head, my stomach, and...yee...kah.” She grimaced, cringing as her hand probed low on her belly, and then, tentatively, between her legs. “Cor...that's bruising.” She examined her fingers. “And sticky. Where's that towel gone?”

“Towel?” the Doctor shrilled. “What towel? And why does this thing...hurt?”

“I expect you've broken it,” Rose sighed, flopping around until she found some pillows. She scraped one or two under her head, and then struggled fruitlessly to sit again. Giving up, she held her messy hand out before her. “Not designed to be used like that, I reckon. How many times did we...?” She wafted the hand through the air, encouraging him to count back. 

“Five or six,” he guessed, rocking his head from side to side to indicate estimation. “Six, I think, with the individual ones at the beginning. I was waiting for the...”

“Yeah, then you've broken it,” she interrupted with a snort of mirth. “Three a night is about the human limit. It's a good thing I've got a strong heart.”

“Well, you might have said something,” he muttered.

“Then, you might have stopped at three,” she told him, with a teasing dart of her eyes. “Which one was three, anyway? The one with the rush of blood to my head?”

“Earlier than that, I believe.”

“Have you the towel over there?”

“Towel?” he squeaked, incredulously. “Why are you suddenly on about towels? What do towels have to do with anything? Why would I have a towel? Who travels through time and space with a...?” He caught himself mid-rant and, breaking into a broad grin, announced, “Arthur Dent! And Ford Prefect. All those Hitchhiker people, in fact. Mind you, I never thought the towel had anything to do with sex. Have I been missing some lusty innuendo all this time?” Scooting to the edge of the bed, he peered over and immediately spotted the towel where it had fallen in a heap. “Ah, there is one. Very handy.” 

Rose wordlessly took it from him as he went on with his nattering. “I always thought it was just versatility...practicality...towels. You can wear them in a pinch. On your head as a turban or a veil. Around your middle as a kilt or dress. A towel can keep you warm at night. Or pillow your head.”

“You can wrap up a parcel for carrying,” Rose said. “Or use it as a net to catch your supper. Or wipe up a mess,” she continued, doing just that.

“Exactly.” He frowned down at his still aching cock, gingerly touching it. “Might use it as a bandage for this thing. It's not sore all over, actually...just on the tip. Like a boil though...and that seems very odd to me. There's such a thing as carrying realism too far. Wipe up a bit of alien spittle...or...whatever,” he said, returning to his previous topic. “The towel,” he pronounced bombastically, launching into an infomercial sales pitch. “Let's you ice pack your penis. It slices. It dices. It purees. Not the penis you understand...?” he snickered as he poked her lightly, “Unless you invest in the Salad Maker Attachment. The towel! Lacking a potholder about the house, protect your hand from second degree burns. Use it as sail for your boat. Flick it in the face of a charging Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal.”

Rose curled up, with an oof of effort, to kiss the tip of his nose. “You're quite mad, you know?” she said. 

“I do know,” he said, flashing a dimpled smile. “I've had a professional evaluation. Course they later declared me quite sane.”

“Did they? Guess even doctors get bits wrong.”

“Well...wasn't their fault. Turns out I really am an alien and a Time Lord and I do keep my time machine in a magical police box. Ergo, sane! And I'm quite sore, too.” Frowning fretfully down on his artificial member, he whistled a bright air and the Blue Label Tau Epsilon puddled back into goo. “Ah, that's better.” He scooped up the flesh-toned blob of gel with both hands, balling it up as he sat it, carefully, on the bedside table.

“That's your password?” Rose said, amazed. “A few bars of 'The Sound of Music?'” She sighed, gingerly patting at her sorest spot. “Wish I could do that.” She tried, whistling, 'The hills are alive, with the sound of music...' before giving up.

“Does it hurt terribly?” the Doctor murmured, becoming the picture of sweet solicitation as he drew her into a hug, spooning around her. “I could kiss it and make it better.” 

“Oh, no more, please,” Rose gasped. ‘Honestly, you’re like a kid at Christmas. And it’s not terrible at all, just achy. I'd walk funny. If I could walk. I'm not complaining, yeah? I could get very used to it.” She stroked her hand along his arm slow and tender. “We are bringing your new toy back to the TARDIS, aren't we?”

“If you like,” he said, carelessly. He dropped kisses along her shoulder, pinching her nipple between two fingers as he did so. She squirmed and moaned. The shift of her bottom against his lap sent delicious vibrations to his nematocytic cells. They were primed to fire. He could take her any time now, he thought. “Shall we stay naked forever?” he asked, between soft smooches. “We could live quite well here...in this room...in this bed. We've got room service and a telly and a mild climate so we won't have to get up and close the walls.”

“Don't you think we might alarm the bellhop?”

“No. Not old Kirgtwi. He's a regular Thakur Sahib. A prince among men...or...mermen. He was the first to take note of your healthy appetite.”

“My appetite?” Rose snorted, shoving her shoulder back as if trying to dislodge him. “You're the one who's insatiable. I can feel you going all prickly, too. So you needn't deny it. I've barely caught my breath and you're ready to go again.” 

“Careful,” he said, glancing at her fingers rubbing back and forth in random patterns along his forearm. “Petting and pushing me is no way to take my mind off sex.” Releasing her with a great show of reluctance, he flopped belly up beside her, the picture of dejection as he sighed, “Oh...all right...if you need the rest, then answer me this: Companion of choice: Spider-man or Ghandi?”

“What a pair!” Rose chortled, squirming to get comfortable. Rolling to her belly, she flexed a knee so her foot, sole parallel to the ceiling, bounced in the air behind her. Then, she propped her head into one hand and regarded him affectionately. This was a favorite game: 'If you could travel through time and space with anyone, fictional or real, who would it be?' “I suppose I'll take...," she said, foot kicking in an arc, toes to the bed, heel to her bare bottom, and back, "Ghandi. Though Spider-man could be useful, if things got sticky, yeah? Ghandi would probably advise peaceful resistance. Sod all pacifists, as my mum would say. Course, she's not a fan of spiders either, come to that.” 

“Ghandi studied law. Lawyers are way more frightening than spiders. Can I get you a banana or a handful of ping-pings?” He asked swinging his feet to the floor and standing. “Some dark chocolate. A coffee.”

“Is there coffee?” Rose asked. 

There was. When you knew where to look, the suite came alive with conveniences. The Doctor ordered her a chocolate-flavored latte and had it within moments. He added sprinkles of shaved chocolate from the cache in his shopping bag. Rose sat to receive this bounty. They played a few rounds of their game as they ate and sipped, debating the relative merits of Robin of Loxley versus T.S. Laurence. After working their way through the cast of Eastenders, they launched into that age-old, geek argument: Kirk vs. Picard.

“Oh, no contest, Jean-Luc Picard,” the Doctor announced boldly. Back in bed, he was licking the last traces of ping-ping juice from Rose's fingers.

“You always go with the British ones,” Rose complained, drawing his attention to a dribble of chocolate on her right breast. He slowly ran the tip of his tongue up the curve of her cleavage, and then gave both her right and, just to be fair, her left nipple a thorough cleaning. “Haven't most of your traveling companions been British?” From the side of her mouth she added, “Not to mention...fresh young things.”

“I like the accent,” he said, putting on a rather posh one. He decorated her breast in sprinkles of chocolate again. Once his gliding tongue traced down every hint of non-Rose flavor, he smirked and said, “And females are easier to TARDIS train.” She rolled away in mock outrage and, snatching up a pillow, began socking him with it, keeping on until they both giggled hysterically. The one-sided pummeling, sent him to the mat. But when she finally let him come up for a breather, he went on being sexist. “No, seriously. No offense meant, and I hope none taken, but human males tend to become aggressive in crisis. Makes my job ten times harder if I have to keep soothing their nerves, calling them off from the fight. Females are less hair-trigger, more circumspect, more adaptable and far less likely to get attached....generally speaking.”

Clutching the pillow to her chest, Rose stared at him over the swell of it for a moment and then said, “You don't want people to get attached to you?”

“Not generally, no. I did my best to avoid any attachment for most of my life. A Time Lord should never exert...”

She finished the sentence with him, “undo influence.”

“Right,” he sniffed. “It's not just some slogan off a billboard. The oath is part of who I am, Rose. I wasn't supposed to keep anyone I picked up along the way. You are quite the anomaly. I've got friends. But males, human males especially, but many others as well, when they bond, are like brothers in arms...they stay bonded. Females are generally much more practical about their future.”

“You catch and release?” she said sounding and looking pensive. “Just take us out for a spin?”

“Not you, Rose,” he said, softly, gliding a fingertip up her leg.

“Yeah, I know,” she told him, brushing off his reassurance but not his caress. “But it's no way to look at other people, is it?” Her thoughts went back to Sarah Jane. Probably, he never explained this to her.

“How do you mean?” he asked, rolling his eyes and tilting his head a bit to see her as she sat up behind him. “They were my friends, every one of them, and that's real enough. I was kidding about the TARDIS training. I just wanted you to pummel me...” Arching his neck, he tipped his head back even further as he beamed at her, “and you did.”

“But...if you look down on us..how can it be....?”

“Look down on you?” he yelped, sitting hastily and swiveling around to take her hands in his. “Look...down? Oh, Rose. No. I could never look down on your species. I find the human race...amazing. Every last one of you. But my companions most of all. Astounding people. You can't know. I wish you could. Maybe...next time we're joined...if we join...I could show you. But Jamie and the Brigadier and even that idiot, Harry Sullivan, they took it all so very seriously. Look how loyal Mickey was to you. Males, of any species, are like that. Adric died for me. You wouldn't catch Tegan doing that.” His grip on Rose's wrists slackened and he smiled wistfully, lost in memories for a moment. Then, he recalled himself with a little twitch and amended, “Well...no, I'm lying...you would, I suppose. I suppose,” he sighed, “Come to think on it, you're absolutely right. I shouldn't generalize. Tegan would have died for me. She'd have gone down fighting like a tiger defending cubs. Just like you...like Sarah Jane or Leela. Maybe it's me. Maybe I get less attached to the females.”

“Why's that?”

“I don't know. Maybe...because I know they'll let go, eventually. They'll want more than a hand to hold. So, they'll move on with their lives...once they find me unsuitable for nesting, I mean.”

“Are you terribly unsuitable?” Rose asked, teasingly.

“Terribly. Not worth domesticating, I'm afraid. You should have returned me to the wild when you had the chance.” 

“Is it too late, now?”

He kissed both her palms, humming as one of them glowed, and then in a breezy offhand way remarked, “Far, far too late. You're stuck with me, I'm afraid. If you try to ditch me, I'll only follow you home.” Despite his light tone, his line of sight lifted so his eyes burned into hers. He held her gaze steadily through a dozen breathes, before suddenly returning to their game. “You know why I really want Picard?” She shook her head and he grinned broadly, “Because he'll go around saying,” he slipped on a fairly good imitation of the Captain as he said, “'Make it so!'” Then, he snickered nerdishly. “Can you imagine? I'd say something like...oh, I don't know...” his gaze flitted to the ceiling as he tried to think of something he might say, “'Would you like to see the outer asteroid belt of Piliarusa?' and he'd say, 'Make it so!'”

“Make it so!” Rose repeated. “I like that. I could go start saying it if you liked.” She tried it on a few times and then went on with the game, “All right. It's Picard for you and Kirk for me. Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Who's your companion? And don't say Giles or I'll biff you with the pillow of harsh judgment.”

“Giles?” He shook his head, underscoring his distaste with a sneer and a wrinkling of his nose. “No. Definitely not old Rupert. Far too pompous. Rather puts me in mind of a tutor I had as a boy.” He gave a delicate shudder. “Or that horrid Mr. Finch and his bat people.”

“The headmaster?” Rose consider this, but shook her head. “I don't quite see it. Mr. Finch was scads older. And,” she circled a hand over her head, “Graying and greasy. What about Buffy her own self? Slayer power's got to come in handy every now and again.”

“Slayers in Space,” the Doctor intoned, like he was doing a Muppet skit intro. Knowing he'd amused her, he flashed a toothy grin. “Miss Summers is a bit like Miss Piggy, come to think of it, with all of the Hi-YA.” He mimed a karate chop. “Both of them quite good with kicks to the solar plexus. I'd travel with Miss Piggy, all right. Though, I've always thought Gonzo would be loads of fun, too,” He turned thoughtful, sucking on the inside of his cheek before saying, “I don't know, though, about Buffy. She's got a destiny, with a capital 'D” and Destiny, with a capital “D” is a tricky business. And I've had a few of those 'kill first ask questions later' companions. Trying. On their best days. I think I'll pass on Buffy. Too much competition. She wants to save the world. I want to save the universe. What about Tara? Tara seems a nice girl. Wiccan, of course. Not that there's anything wrong with it.”

“There you go with the girls again. What about Xander or Spike or what's his face with the ginger hair?”

“Xander? If there was ever anyone more useless than Mickey....”

“Hey,” she warned. “Be nice.”

“Spike? Ah...hmmm? My first thought is: he's a vampire. Practically useless in the daylight and then there's the evil, unscrupulous side of things. British...only not really because he's a California boy, putting on the accent.”

“We're not talking about the actor. Stick to the character.”

“Yes, all right, I'm considering him. Let me think.” He pinched his lower lip as he considered. “I'd rather have Ghandi. Difficult keeping a companion out of direct sunlight. Planets these days...? So often sun-drenched. Look at...well...yesterday. There we were on a beach...abundant sunlight, just...bucketing down. Although,” he mused. “Sunlight does vary in spectrum, star to star, system to system, world to world. I wonder...could we toss him outside on a planet with no ultraviolet range? Hmmm! Bit of an experiment, that. Not quite ethical. And even if we could...only visting planets without ultraviolet is sadly limiting. I'd be curtailed and no mistake. Unless...? Come to think of it...I could just spray him down with late 21st century sunblock and be done with it.”

“Late 21st century sunblock?”

“Global warming. Probably not the best time to bring this up...but...it'll turn a little toasty on your world before you all," he spooled a few circles in the air with one index finger, "wise-up and stop using fossil fuels."

"That's not funny," Rose told him.

"Neither is strip-mining. Or the 'Clear Skies Initiative.' Start putting your money into algae shielding for the atmosphere. The sun is a bitter enemy, Rose, never cross it. Spike would tell you I'm right.” He closed on her, suddenly needing more contact. “You know...?” he hummed, licking into her ear so she squirmed delightfully in his arms. “Spike might be decent company. We like the same music. Love those Ramones. He's been to Woodstock and I haven't. I could take him to the Crucifixion. Though he's not likely to appreciate it...what with his Crucifix allergy bringing him out in hives. I'll take Spike, then. Or that other one...Jonathan.”

“I forgot about him,” Rose lilted, bouncing a bit. The jiggle of her flesh making the Doctor gasp and come out in a prickle of something very like hives. “Got to love Jonathan. He could go off with us instead of dying. What about Angel?”

It was getting hard to concentrate but he managed to ask, “As an alternative to Jonathan? I don't think so. I'm not sure I could take all that brooding...or...do you mean the show?”

“The series.”

They both dipped back to look at one another and chorused. “Wesley!”

Rose fell sideways into the Doctor, giggling as she pulled him to the bed. They rolled over one another, gathering a cocoon of silk as they went because Rose insisted on clawing into the coverlet. Reaching the foot of the bed, they spilled over it to the floor. The Doctor cushioned Rose's fall, but then, needing to be on top, quickly reversed their relationship. Once he had her pinned under him, he took her wrists above her head, manacling them in his fists, as he rubbed along the satin expanse of her belly. Two dozen darts fired into her flesh. She drew a shocked breath, eyes opening wide as she flinched from the pain. 

“British,” she accused. “Wes is...British.”

“You can stop fixating on that any time now. The TARDIS favors one hemisphere of your world over the other, one tiny little island, in fact. Perhaps it has something to do with the chameleon circuit.” He kissed her, more darts letting go into her mouth. The world began swirling around them as he went on. “I don't know...maybe the old girl is just trying to fit in, be more comfortable in her skin. She can't change the way she looks so she goes where she's less conspicuous. Naturally, this limits my choice of companion....to British.”

“You aren't fooling me,” Rose told him as he sank, ever so slowly into her mind. “It's not the TARDIS...it's you. You like tea and crumpets and beans on toast and the accent.”

“Jack was American. Tegan? Australian. Adric was Alzarian...and I don't know but what I might rather go with Cordy over Wes. Assuming you're still on board...and I wouldn't want to assume anything else...I'm not sure I could risk having Wesley Wyndam-Price just down the hall. He's got natural human appendages and you do tend to go for that type...weasel-thin...tall...dark...first in his class with the answers. Hmmm?”

“Sounds lovely,” Rose admitted, welcoming him into her mind, offering absolutely no resistance as he flowed deep into her subconscious. There was no fear in her now. She wrapped her soul around him like a comfy blanket. “But he can't out otter you. Besides, he's not really British.”

“The character not the actor, remember, and I thought that was my bias. What do you care if he's British or not?” the Doctor asked, pulling her into his arms so their bodies echoed their minds as the room faded away into mist and they became one.

“I'm very patriotic,” she told him, outside his body. She shouldn't be able to do that, he felt, yet she was doing it. “Union Jack...Union flag...Queen Mum and all the rest.”

To his surprise the room came back a moment later, though in even more vivid color. He lifted his head to look around. He hadn't done that. Rose had recreated their hotel room. He tried to guide her to an imaginary glen or beach. She resisted his efforts. The room became extraordinarily sharp, every detail limned in light. The message was clear, there was no place Rose would rather be than right where she was. 

_No one else I'd rather be with._ She said it without making a sound. 

There was, he noticed, a stillness to this brilliantly realized world of hers. He listened but heard nothing louder than the whisper of the curtains in the breeze, the shush of distant waves and an occasional bird call. 

_It's so quiet._

_Because we're all alone._

_The world to ourselves, hey? I love it._

_I love you._

Very close to her ear, and yet, also in their joined mind, he whispered, “I'm not really British.”

END THIS PART

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sharp eyed readers may have noted a reference to the Doctor and Rose being on Barcelona before. And wondered...what? Well...that is a reference to an earlier smutty fic I did called "Suicide Blonde" and at this point...those of you who want to step out of this fic and read that one can do so. The events have a different perspective, but the gist of what happens remains the same. 
> 
> Go read Suicide Blonde of you want a more complete picture of the Doctor/Rose relationship.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor and Rose discuss the concept of marriage and why it is hardly an appropriate thing for a Time Lord to discuss and how it doesn't really mean what Rose thinks it means. Also, there's a bit about how he will have other women after her and had some before her and none of that matters. 
> 
> Taken from the scene where Rose and Ten are standing on that barren world and he asks her how long she is going to stay with him.

_The Crimson-Cycle on the Lor-Xin Spatial-Relevance Wheel – Eye of Harmony Variance: Apogee Gamma Frame 108 Sigma had a bad reputation. Over sixteen hundred wars had sparked at those temporal coordinates. Two hundred and thirty-nine civilizations crumbled into dust before the wobbly wheel turned again. Suns went nova. Planets withered and died. Suicide bombers, suicide pacts and suicide missions had flourished in the Crimson Cycle. Every young Time Lord studied the Variance, looking for loopholes in time. There'd even been a sort of parlor game based on containing random fluctuations of the myriad paradox loops._

_Only pirates, lunatics and fools parked their TARDIS anywhere along the Crimson-Cycle of The Wobbly Wheel. The Doctor didn't see himself as a fool, or much of a pirate. The jury was still out on lunatic, he supposed. The fact was he was quite mad on that fateful October day, oh, so long ago, the day he'd first met Rose Tyler in a waterfront pub. He'd come to Barcelona to finish himself and ended up initiating a paradox loop of his very own. A loop he'd had no choice but to close one day._

_At the moment, he could barely remember it. Regenerative spooling blinded him to his former self. He could just about recall knowing something of the man in the leather coat and purple jumper. Purple? Rose said it brought out his eyes, but was that really a look he'd fancied? Or was it only what they'd given him when he left the asylum? He couldn't say. That man, his former self, was a stranger to him. Regenerative spooling, a sort of temporary amnesia, created echoing holes in his memory. He'd watched a shaggy-haired, wild-eyed man exit the TARDIS with no sense of recognition. He wasn't that man. They were two separate people. He wasn't hanging onto sanity by an unraveling thread. His life had meaning, purpose._

_But being a different man didn't stop the alarming images which continued to surface out of the amnesia-like fog delineating his contemporary self. There'd been a room...flesh on flesh, heated and slippery. Dewy lips slightly parted, gasping, moaning, pleading for release. He could almost taste that first kiss. Almost feel the drag on his arm as the man he'd once been pulled Rose into an alley, up a flight of stairs. Feet thumping heavily along a landing. Passing one, two, three doors, before propelling her into a stifling hot room. He could almost remember the heat, like a second skin, and the bed, a sagging tangle of iron and springs, squeaking and quivering. Her hair had shimmered, silken smooth strands catching between his calloused fingers._

_He'd wanted her so intently. That man he'd been had wanted her. All of his longing for home, comfort and forgiveness had found satisfaction in her. There had been hunger and desperation, force and eventual peace. If there been tenderness or love, he couldn't recall it._

He couldn't recall. But he'd sent Rose to that stranger's bed. He'd smiled at her and told her not to worry as he'd steered her into a madman's path. Setting aside his personal feelings, he'd done what was necessary. Because he was a Time Lord, first, before anything else. A Time Lord and a rat bastard. A temporal loop had been opened. The Time Lord in him knew it had to be closed or the universe as they'd known it would fracture. He had betrayed his people and the woman he loved for the best of reasons. Surely, Rose would never look at him the same way again. He'd put off facing her with this one escapable truth for as long as he could, but he could not put off going to her now. As soon as the other TARDIS left, he dashed across the piazza. 

It took him a few scattered minutes to locate the bar and attached hotel. He took the stairs three at a time and found Rose sleeping peacefully, curled up under a thread-bare sheet. Her mouth looked bruised, but a small smile played on her lips. The smell of sex lingered in the air. The scent and self-loathing made him retch. He clung to the door frame, letting the sea breeze in. It was cooler now that the sun had set. Fresh air cleaned the heat and the reek from the room. With some effort, he controlled the indulgent impulse to punish himself. Rose mattered more. After setting aside the duffel of clothes he'd brought for her, he removed his coat, tossing it toward the foot of the bed. 

He went first to the window, opening it wide. Then, tugging at his tie, he turned back to the bed. He decided to wrap her in his shirt to protect her from further injury. The last thing she needed was a dose of neurotoxin on top of everything else. As he settled on the edge of the bed, his eye fixed on a scrap of paper on the side table. It took him a moment to understand what he was seeing. When he did, he dropped his tie and snatched at the evidence of his madness. His fingertips missed the paper. 

He didn't get another chance to examine it. As he leaned forward, Rose's hand brushed his arm. She took him into her dreams, her mind like quicksand, pulling him under. He was powerless to resist. She shifted and held out her arms. His cnidocytes needed no further encouragement. Entering her dreams with a sense of reverence, he did not look for answers, did not seek to reassure himself, but only guided her down into deeper sleep. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The night passed quickly and the sun dawned beastly hot. Coastal humidity increased until the seedy motel room became a pressure cooker. Even in their dream, he could not escape his sense of passing hours, the planet's turning. It was time to go, time to face the consequences of his actions, of his lies. Slowly, reluctantly, the Doctor disengaged the dreaming bits and pieces of himself from the enveloping comfort of Rose Tyler’s mind. Like a dandelion seeding the wind, he let his consciousness fragment into helicoptering puffs of awareness. As he drew away, his sense of separate identity manifested. He was himself again, if insubstantial. 

Hovering near the ceiling, in diffuse detachment, he stared down on his marriage bed and his wife. He’d married her. The bloody, bow-legged, big-eared buffoon had married Rose Tyler. On a whim. On the spot. In a pub near the waterfront. He’d handed her a plate and a fish. Not because he’d loved her on sight, but because that’s what he’d always done, married in haste, regretted at leisure. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, straight out of the asylum he'd still viewed himself as a temporal tourist, as if none of the social norms applied to him. If the local constabulary demanded a marriage license for a shag, then he married. Simple really.

Before Rose, it had never occurred to him to take such things seriously. Never occurred to him that marriage might mean anything, be anything, more than a quaint treaty between powers. Because he was a Time Lord and, he might as well face it, quite mad. There was no denying it. He was mad. And a bigamist besides. 

He wondered idly if Rose and Melianea Klaxis would get along. Probably not. Not that it mattered. He had no intention of letting Melianea know he’d survived her last assassination attempt. God, he was rubbish at weddings.

But Rose was the perfect bride. Glossed by perspiration, lips slightly swollen, she looked beautiful, angelic. A fallen angel, he believed, but not a bitter or vindictive one. She would forgive him. He had to believe that. Judging by the discrepancies in their appearances, she'd forgiven much already. Physically, he was joke: a ferret-thin fellow, all elbows and knees. His hair clumped in erratic tufts like the grass on beach dunes. One of his trouser legs had crept up his calf. There was a dribble of saliva caked at the corner of his mouth. Having slept in his trousers and trainers, he looked comically disarrayed. 

Rose, in contrast, was exquisite. Her hair had fanned in a champagne halo. Her mouth had a rosebud pout. She wore his blue and white striped shirt and his tie, but no knickers or shoes. The barely buttoned shirt gaped, revealing creamy curves. Though open to her navel, the shirt covered her as well as any plunging-neckline swimsuit might. Even when she arched, languidly bridging her back, she retained some semblance of modesty. Though she was wanton and he knew it all too well. He encouraged her to give in to desire, just as he'd abandoned any pretense of restraint. He had no shame and set no limits when it came to her appetite for him. 

On the surface of it, they were a mismatched pair, the last Time Lord and a shop girl from some backwater planet. But they were not so far apart anymore. Rose had changed. And so had he. He’d become a different person because of her, a better person. And he loved her. Dearly. Completely. There, he’d said it, if only in his mind. Of course, she knew. She had to know. He was wholly transparent. And on some level it terrified him. But, for the most part, he accepted his fragile happiness. Rose Tyler had become the hub around which his life orbited. She had no idea what he would do for her, the sacrifices he would be willing to make. 

Soothed by the mere sight of her, he floated above the bed for some time, perfectly content to watch over her. She slept blissfully on, dreaming of a world she’d never known. His world. Gallifrey. He seldom spoke the name, even when he shared his memories with her. But he often took her there. Her soft murmurings and delighted, if fleeting, smiles reflected how much the wonders of his home world astounded her. Via their shared visions, he’d taken her to nearly all of his childhood haunts. Places he had roamed alone, they had reclaimed as a couple. 

This time they’d gone to the Senate for his first speech. A rabble-rousing effort on free will, it had driven Rose to her feet, cheering with the rest of the crowd. Afterward, they’d attended a reception at his family’s ancestral estate. Rose had listened intently as he'd gone through the litany of his clan. He'd given her the shilling tour of the rambling old house. But halfway through they'd been distracted by an open window. Beyond it was the sea where the TARDIS had spawned.

He'd taken her flying. Rose had been amazed by the concept, but had readily absorbed his description of the mechanism involved. Very quickly she was soaring on her own. Despite her novice status, she'd led him a merry chase. Of course, it was far easier to fly in dreams than in reality. But still, she'd impressed him, darting down to skim above the waves. It had taken some effort to catch her. When he did, when he'd driven her to ground, she'd opened her arms to welcome him, radiating joy as they kissed. 

In their dreams, he was free to express himself fully, love her as a man. Free to tell her how much he cared. From the first tentative brush of their lips to the moment when Rose had sprawled gasping and naked across his chest, he’d thought of nothing but pleasing her. He’d guided the fantasy and there was no doubt she’d been satisfied. They'd been lovers for some time now. He knew what thrilled her. How rough to be. How tender. Under the surreal glow of Gallifrey's night sky, he’d surrendered to her every desire, made her keen in rapture. 

But it had only been a dream. In reality, there was this hot Barcelona room. And what he'd done. He let his flesh inhale his will, his sense of self. And opened his eyes. Rose's breathing sounded labored. They had to get out of here. By midday they would start to stew. Yesterday’s scents, stale sweat and sex, still lingered. The minor irritants formed a sensual anchor for him as he breathed them in. They dragged the rest of his remote consciousness toward his body. Discomfort helped him focus. If he was hot, Rose must be roasting. She would need to eat, drink and deal with other calls of nature. 

As he shunted into reality, his flesh absorbed his conscious awareness. He felt himself solidify, took a ragged breath and coughed. The cough expanded into wracking hacks. Sputtering, he struggled into a sitting position. Another anniversary had come and gone, been celebrated and recorded. Rose was twenty-four, a child when compared to his centuries. She’d be dust in one turn of the universe no matter what happened today. And he’d be alone again. 

“How long?” She'd asked yesterday on their way to breakfast. “How long until the honeymoon ends?” 

And a tiny part of him had whispered, 'Tomorrow. It ends tomorrow.' 

That had been his fear talking. It spoke to him often. But he would never utter those words aloud. Never give them power. It would not end, not today, not ever, because he could not bear it. So, instead of answering her, he’d grinned and ricocheted into the nearest shop to buy her the dress in the window and whatever else she’d fancied. She picked out a jeweled bandanna and red shoes. Inspired by her choices, he’d taken her dancing. They’d danced until the early morning hour closed every club. Then, because he hadn’t wanted the day to end, they’d walked along the beach, hand-in-hand, her head pillowed against his shoulder. 

But the day had ended. And the next day had come. And he’d told her a pack of lies about destiny and sent her off in her pretty new dress to seduce a madman. He’d sent her to an unknown fate, because he could not remember what kind of man he’d been. He didn’t even recognize the shaggy-haired stranger in the leather coat and jumper. Regeneration amnesia had claimed his past for a time. It was always this way for a Time Lord crossing his own path. No memory of his other selves. A sort of blind spot developed, making them separate men as soon as they came into close proximity. Only the TARDIS offered some protection against this effect, perhaps because it remembered him always. 

He’d been clueless when he’d sent Rose on her mission. Worse, he hadn’t told her of his failing memory. He hadn’t warned her to be careful. A warning might have changed things, made her cautious when she should have been bold. But mostly, he didn't warn her because there was no path she could take to avoid meeting his Ninth-self on Barcelona. It had happened. They were caught in a predestination loop. The past dictated events. He’d sent his beloved to be wedded, bedded and abandoned in one night, because his wandering heart knew he must. Knew, in fact, he had already done it. This much he remembered, he'd met Rose before that night at Henrik's. And her mother had been perfectly right to slap him.

Time Lords didn’t cross their own path lightly. To do so was to go forward in temporal blindness, risking your own identity, past and future. One tiny mistake, the famous flap of a butterfly’s wings, could send you into a parallel universe or rewrite your DNA. He could, quite literally, have become another man while Rose was gone. She could have disappeared forever. But he’d had no choice. 

The Time Lord in him insisted on bringing Rose Tyler to Barcelona on this, their sixth anniversary. She’d had to go from their present to his past. What had happened before must happen exactly the same way again. Only then, only when the loop closed would their past together be assured. Until that happened, they couldn’t move on into the future together. They had reached a chaos point, one he’d been dreading for a very long time. This was the moment when everything changed, the point where the future he desired could spiral away from him.

He couldn’t tell, yet, if something had gone wrong. He might never be able to tell. But if Rose had failed to seduce him or if he’d hurt her in some permanent way or if love had failed to bloom for him…so much of his existence would have unraveled. No Rose. No Susan. No hope. No him. And he was still here. Rose was still here. Yet, now, he was married. Had they been married all along? If so, why hadn’t he remembered it yesterday?

Seeking cooler skin, Rose kicked fretfully at the sheet wrapped around her legs. The sharp movements drew his attention. He rolled to his side to face her, his arm snaking under his shirt and across her belly. Glancing along her body, he smiled. Bare flesh left him unmoved, he was still a Time Lord and a doctor, but her feet entranced him. She'd given herself a pedicure this week. Her nails sparkled with tiny diamond flowers. He adored the whimsy of that. Loved her toes. Loved how they gripped when, in the heat of passion, she braced a foot against his shoulder or slid one down the back of his thigh. It was a primate thing, prehensile toes. Like hugging it was alien to his culture.

As it turned out, he was a natural born hugger. He’d come to it late in life, but had, for lack of a better word, embraced it completely. He adored holding Rose, having her cling to him. Meld with him. Over the past TARDIS year, he'd taken great pains to encourage clinging. He could find the hugging opportunity in spilled paint. Any slight tragedy or triumph quite easily converted into a snuggle. He had made no attempt, indeed had no wish, to blunt Rose's desire to hold onto him. This was a marked change in him. She wasn't the first companion to crave physical reassurance. He had always held himself apart. 

But asexuality had been, at least temporarily, set aside. He'd come to not only tolerate lust, but revel in it. He’d taken Rose in alleyways and doorways, on benches and beaches and bar tops. He’d been taken in turn in lavish motel rooms and tiny space-liner cupboards and once on the M-5 in the back of a lorry conveying chickens to market. 

Rose had insisted they cover the cages with his coat. “Being gawked at by doomed poultry,” she’d told him, “isn’t my idea of romantic.” 

“Oh, come on," he'd whined. "You’re far more interested in their breasts than they are in yours." 

But he’d responded to her stern look, taking off his coat and obediently blocking the view. Afterward, in the afterglow, they’d been inspired to set the chickens free. He’d used his TARDIS, one of the most awe-inspiring and sophisticated pieces of technology in existence, to transport chickens to a better life. They’d taken the fryers to Coliaj Seven where birds of any description were rare enough to be worshiped. Weeks later he was still finding feathers in the console room.

The irony was palpable. Once upon a time he’d been a vagabond clown, the crazy, wandering uncle of his clan. Nobody had respected him. He’d been an embarrassment, something Gallifrey hushed up. And while he was not above foolishness, he’d never dreamed of rescuing chickens from an untimely death. Now, he was the last of his kind, overwhelmed by the magnitude of his responsibilities, respected by untold numbers of people. Yet, he found himself doing the maddest things. Truthfully, he did whatever Rose asked of him. Even if she only pleaded with her eyes, with a glance, he felt compelled to comply. To her credit she asked for very little. With all of time and space at his command, he could have built her a palace from emeralds or made her a planetary queen. Instead, he ended up ferrying chickens to a better life. 

He didn't mind really. He wanted Rose to be happy. In some ways that was a greater challenge than he'd ever undertaken. Human satisfaction was fleeting. Mindful of their tendency to become jaded by familiarity, he varied his approach to lovemaking as often as he varied the venue. Luckily, he was nothing if not inventive.

It had been fun for him, liberating. Like Omega before him, he’d come to appreciate human sexuality for its mathematical progression. It scanned very much like music or poetry. The basic biology remained static but the act itself was, like humanity itself, chaotic and infinitely adaptable. It frightened him with its permutations. No one before Rose had ever adapted as well to him. Since their last visit to Barcelona, he'd made sex his personal instrument, and Rose an opus of self-expression, wringing both joyful and sorrowful music from her lips. She’d made him extravagant promises and he'd accepted them without question. She was his. He was hers. 

She woke in slow stages. Watching her caused an ethereal pang at the center of his being. He swallowed against the ache as she stirred, turning toward him. Her lashes shivered, lifted and revealed wide, innocent eyes. Behind the veil of her heavy lids, her gaze remained glassy and unfocused. She was still in the grip of the dreaming seed. The world seemed, no doubt, as shadowed and meaningless for her as it had been for him on awaking. But she saw him and smiled mistily, her velvety lips parting just a bit. 

Sweet kissable lips, he adored the fullness of them, moist and yielding. His hand skimmed up her side, over the swell of her breast and the along the curve of her throat. Cupping her cheek, he drew her mouth to his, tasting cinnamon and vanilla. She offered no resistance. She offered nothing. He took. Memory stirred at the front of his mind. She wore the same flavored lip-gloss she’d worn the day they’d met. His recollection of this one thing was clear, though all else remained indistinct. The recollections of the man he used to be were elusive, nothing but jagged images. But he thought he remembered savaging her mouth in desperate hunger. He thought he remembered his fury, the tumultuous anger within him, abating as she entered his mind. She'd entered his mind. It had startled him.

He’d been so raw, the day they’d met, straight out the asylum, half-mad and suicidal. The universe, a yawning maw at his back. Despair had threatened to swallow him whole. Wrestling with black rage and helplessness, he’d forced himself to put one foot in front of the other. Finally, no longer able to bear the empty universe, he’d decided to join his people in death. In the grip of a bottomless hunger…so alone, and ready to end it all, he’d come to Barcelona. But something had happened to change him. Rose Tyler, as yet unnamed, had been waiting in a bar. She’d found him, saved him. She’d satisfied his hunger, not just physically but spiritually. She’d given him reason to hope. 

He’d called her Bella, the beautiful one. At least he thought he had. He remembered her piecemeal, now, so close to the tipping point of twin existences. There was…the spicy zeal of her lip balm…the yellow and pink dress...her bare shoulders...her kind eyes…her painted, sparkling toenails…the chemical scents, nail polish, hair dye and cheap cosmetics…and an all-enveloping slick heat, the slippery fever of rutting sex, sweaty skin. Dream-like still images were layered over with divergent possibilities. Anything could have happened. Something had.

“You look worried,” Rose rasped, her dry croak cutting into his reverie.

He blinked away his concerns, met her eye, and smiled. “I’m just…that is I was…,” he sighed, knowing he couldn’t tell her, “Thinking…” He rolled away from her and levered to an elbow to retrieve a glass of water from the bedside table. He saw the marriage license again but ignored it. “Are you thirsty?” 

She murmured assent as she took the drink from him. Her hands trembled a little. Noticing, he dropped an arm around her shoulder and used his other hand to help her steady the glass, guiding it to her lips. After a few gulps, she sighed, flopping back down onto the pillows. 

“Wow. You sure know how to show a girl a good time. What was that building with the spires?” She asked, sketching pointy shapes in the air with her free hand.

The question caught him off-guard. He peeped in confusion, a helpless note at the back of his throat. She took it as a request for more information.

“On your planet? The big white one with the five gold towers?”

“Oh,” he exclaimed, understanding dawning, “The Mojxliia Cathedral, a remnant of the Dark Times. It was designed by Callphaagiasun himself.”

Rose nodded as if she understood all about Gallifreyan architecture. Perhaps she did. “It was beautiful. And the colors, orange and silver…the sea…”

Remembering what they’d done overlooking the sea, he gurgled happily and gave her a tiny squeeze. The lift of his chin and a devilish glint in his eye invited her to grin back at him, but she seemed lost in thought and didn’t even look his way. 

Undaunted, he snuffled her hair as he nosed his way to her ear to whisper, “You should rest, but it's too hot here.” Her brevity of encouragement left him rudderless. He shifted away from her to study her profile. Determined to steer the conversation toward cheerful banalities, after a long stretch of silence, he said, “You're wearing my shirt.”

“You gave it to me. And your tie.” 

“In the dream,” he said, stressing the final word. 

Rose shrugged. “I'm getting better at breaking free. I needed to use the ladies'.” She tugged playfully at his tie, treating it as if it were a crimson leash, before lifting the noose of it over her head. She held it out to him, but he made no move to take it from her hand. “Doctor?”

She'd broken free of the dreaming seed, asserted her will. She'd left him sleeping and he hadn't even stirred. That was an ability beyond any human. Just as embodying the Vortex was beyond Time Lords. What else could she do? What else had she done? For the first time, he wondered if she could manipulate him as easily as she had brought Jack back from the dead. He still shivered slightly when he thought of Jack. The spheres were shifting. He could feel the wobbly wheel turning under his feet. 

“We should go,” he said, standing abruptly. With a slight dip of his head, he indicated the duffel by the door. “I brought you clothes. Dress and we'll get a spot of breakfast.”

“Breakfast? I can barely move.” 

Fear for her chilled him, raising gooseflesh on his arms and overshadowing any concerns he harbored about her power. “Are you hurt?” He blurted. Resting a knee on the bed, he leaned toward her, solicitously brushing the hair from her brow. “Did he…did I…?” 

“What? Ravage me?” Rose chuckled, rolling to her hip to face him. “A bit.” She took his hand in hers and, turning it, kissed his wrist. “Oh, you were very bad before. I had no idea you were so…ho…” she fanned herself with her free hand, indicating heat that had nothing to do with the sweltering room. Her evident delight helped quell his fears. 

“I've always been creative,” he admitted. After a brief pause, he checked in with her, “It wasn’t…awful for you, then?”

“No,” she laughed. When he didn’t even crack a smile, she sobered and sat up straight, knees to her chest. Lifting his palm to her cheek, she leaned into it and asked, “Did you think it was? Is that why you left like that? Swanning off while I was sleeping? Did you think I hadn’t enjoyed it?”

He puffed out a ‘w’ as he rocked from side to side, a sure sign he was fumbling for the right thing to say. This was getting awkward and he felt off balance. His Swiss cheese memory had apparently been leading him astray. He tried to control his nervous ticks as his line of sight dropped again to his chucks. “I…didn’t…really consider…” The fingers of his free hand had locked around the nape of his neck. He was floundering, trying not to spaz. What could he say that wouldn't sound insensitive? He’d married her and abandoned her, but frankly had no idea why. A flash of memory gave him words. “You told me to go.”

Rose relaxed, satisfied. “Because of the paradox loop," she surmised, snapping her fingers, and then pointing one at him. He nodded. “I forgot about that. Didn't want you bumping into yourself.” She still held his hand, now cradled against her chest. As she wriggled back down under the sheets, she drew her thumb along his palm. His hand slid through hers. Smiling up at him, she said, “You were so...different. It was wonderful, though. Very good. Very…very…”

“Oh?” he puffed, relief having lasted all of ten seconds. “Three verys for the loon in the jumper. That's nice,” he remarked, brow arching as, once again, his attention drifted to the paper on the table. “So…it was good for you, then? You liked the rough madman and his…scruffy barbering and…and,” he crossed to the table and picked up the room and wedding receipt, “leather jacket.”

Rose frowned. “He’s you,” she reminded him, sounding confused. “I thought you said you couldn’t be jealous of yourself.”

“I’m not jealous,” he said, huffily. “I’m surprised. Perhaps a bit…perplexed. Chiefly, about this,” he said, waving the slip of paper at her. “You married him?”

Turning pink, Rose drew her knees up to her chin. She hugged them as she shrank in on herself. Her mouth opened but no sound came out. The fingers of one hand toyed with her bottom lip. She looked impossibly young, completely innocent. He waited for her to explain but she only ducked her head and said, “Oh, that. Yeah. Well…you said I should just go along with him…with anything…”

“Marriage?” he yelped, rattling the paper emphatically.

“We can have it annulled after breakfast,” Rose said losing interest as she swiveled around until her feet dangled over the side of the bed. 

“What?” he said. And then, because she was staring out the window, apparently oblivious to him, he said it again, “What?”

“You don't do domestic. I get that.” Head bowed in contemplation, she swung her feet back and forth. “But its nothing. Just a piece of paper. It's not like it means anything. It can't mean anything, right? I haven't even been born, yet.”

“Of all the self-centered reasoning...” he began, starting around the end of the bed. 

She stood, sidestepping his advance, and, with a few deft movements, shed his shirt. Then, covering her breasts with crossed arms, she scurried to the duffel. Surprised into silence, he watched her rummage for knickers, a bra and her blue jeans. She kept a cold shoulder to him as she dressed. He wondered at this sudden modesty, but didn't think to question her mood.

“You could have changed history,” he said, sharply. “Did you even consider that?”

“Of course, I considered it,” Rose countered, sounding angry. She shot him a scowl. “I may not be a Time Lord, but I'm not stupid.” Briefly shuffling through the tops he’d brought, she cast the lot of them back into the bag. “But what was I supposed to do? And why didn't you tell me we were married? All those times I was jealous…all those nights we spent together…you never thought to say, 'Oh, by the by...'”

“That’s because we aren't married...weren't married. It didn’t happen like that.” He didn’t want to suggest he might have forgotten it. “The universe as we know it could be unraveling and you'd like an apology?”

“Is that too much to ask?” Rose challenged him. “You send me off with a cheerful pat on the head and tell me just go along with everything. They wouldn't rent us a room without a proper license. And he...you insisted. I didn't even know what was happening, at first. Do you remember what you were like before? Arrogant and alien and drunk and mad and...you whipped out a handful of coins and told me to sign where indicated. And how do _you_ always get a room here if we aren't married?”

“I lie. Dr. & Mrs. John Smith. Did neither of you think of lying to the landlord, Mrs....” he glanced at the paper in his hand, and read the name on a fading breath, “Foreman?” Foreman. Susan. And his former self. A dead man as far as Rose was concerned. Her see-sawing mood suddenly made perfect sense. How painful and odd this must all be for her.

He saw her impatiently brush away a tear and opened his mouth to apologize, but she was already striding back to the bed. “I thought of kicking a door in somewhere, just getting on with it. But you...he...needed it to be...special.” Her voice cracked and he understood how confused she must have been. 

There were things for him to regret here. They just weren't the things he'd been expecting. He wanted desperately to say something consoling. 

But instead, he asked, “How could that be wonderful?” 

“It was still you,” she said, simply. “Hurting and lost...but...”

“I'm sorry...I...”

Her hands clenched, twisting his shirt collar. “It's a bit late for that, isn't it? All this time, you've been lying to me. You thought I was going to be ravaged or something…and you didn’t know about the marriage? So, when you sent me off...” Her teeth bit through the rest of her sentence. "Oh, what does it matter?" She gave his shirt a swift snap, cracking it through the air, before ramming her arms into the sleeves. 

“It matters." He spoke to her as an equal, as if she were a Time Lord, too. "You had to go. We had to close the loop.” 

“I know,” she said, giving him a very bleak stare. “I can feel the planet turning. This place. This time. It's making my skin itch."

"You can feel it?"

"I could leave your mind. And I put his head right. I'm not exactly human anymore. Am I?”

He bounced from foot to foot, trying to think of something to say, but nothing came to him and he finally settled on a confession. “All right. So, I don't know everything. I didn’t exactly remember what happened between us...not clearly. It's all a bit fuzzy...and complicated. Like you said, you're changing. And that's...not what I expected and I’d had a lot to drink. And…I'd been through the war, post-asylum stress syndrome...then there was the tree slug in my system. And there’s a sort of amnesia. When a Time Lord crosses his own…”

He was talking to thin air. 

Damn.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Damn.

She'd used the blue. It had taken most of the morning to position the Hoix perfectly. They'd outflanked it twice only to have it slip away. But they'd finally cornered it, three strides short of its recon-ship. And now it was after her again. Yelling at Rose to hold on, the Doctor slammed the door on the only exit and raced off along a divergent corridor. If he'd judged the route correctly, he should be able to intercept the Hoix before it took off Rose's head. If he'd judged incorrectly, he'd be running around in circles again. 

He sprinted past a fork in the way, not sure bearing left was the right choice. All of the intersecting corridors were beginning to look alike. Of course, one hardly expected original décor in a meat processing plant. But they might have added a few yellow lines on the floor to guide visitors. Inconsiderate, he'd say. 

Pausing at the next junction to catch his breath and take his bearings, he listened and heard Rose coming. The beast growled and snarled, close behind her. Its lower tones were almost lost against the background noise of machinery, but Rose's screaming reverberated in the labyrinth like a siren's wail. They'd established the bellowing as a signal. It was the best way to keep track of one another in the maze of corridors. The noise helped the Doctor orient. Once he'd fixed on Rose's relative position, he readied himself like a relay-race sprinter awaiting a baton hand-off. 

Rose appeared out of the mist on his right. She rocketed by him, screaming for all she was worth. He fell into stride just behind her and they ran together for a few meters. They passed through the exit hall again, both of them bellowing. This was getting as monotonous as it was ridiculous.

“Take the next two lefts,” he barked at Rose. “Get to the TARDIS and fetch the other bucket.”

“Right,” she said, nodding.

“Not right,” he corrected, irritably, “Left. Twice. And not blue.”

Salient points stressed, he dropped back until the Hoix was breathing down his neck. The beast clawed at him, but missed. Despite the burden of a flaring coat, and the need to duck around frozen sides of beef, the Doctor was quick on his feet. He needed to stay a few strides ahead of his fearsome pursuer. He didn't want to risk losing an arm. But he also couldn't afford to lose the predator's interest. If they allowed it to report in with data, the Hoixania would know it had found a habitable planet. Better it was never heard from again. If only they'd managed to corral it. 

The creature slashed at him again, just as Rose broke away from them. The Doctor pivoted to the left as if to follow her. Then, at the last second, zigged right again. The sudden change in direction spared him a nasty cut, but unfortunately, it also sent him careening out of control. Sensing weakness the Hoix charged. Fantastic. The Doctor whirled. Skidding along the wall, he narrowly avoided a killing blow to the head.

Too close. That was too close, he thought, turning on a bit of speed. His yelling took on a more desperate edge. They'd been running for what seemed like an eternity. Up and down the same narrow ways. Where the hell was Rose with that bucket? The stress was starting to take a toll on him, and his trainers. As he bolted around a corner, one of his shoe laces broke. He trod on the loose end, staggered and the beast caught up. It slammed into his shoulder, talons closing around his arm. There was nothing to check their momentum. The Doctor tried to turn his fall into a dive, but off balance, he splayed forward. Struggling to keep his feet, he flailed his arms as gravity got the better of him. 

He and the Hoix collapsed in a heap. Staring into the teeth of fate, he readied himself for the regenerative fire. The monster bellowed its triumph. It had breath like an open sewer. It rose to its feet, towering over him. And Rose arrived. She rushed from the right, red bucket in hand.

“About bloody time,” he snapped. And then, because the beast had smelled its doom and turned tail, he added, “After it.”

With a war whoop, Rose took off on the heels of the Hoix. Exhaling stress in a rush, he scrambled up to follow. They crossed the central corridor again, three in a line. Trailing behind, the Doctor was momentarily distracted by the sight of the boy who had come upon them earlier. The one he'd told to run. A factory worker, he'd assumed, but now he noticed something familiar in the wide-eyed stare. He’d seen that face somewhere before. He backpedaled to stare.

“Do I know you?” he asked. The boy didn't answer, just gurgled moronically before bolting. Humans, they were an unpredictable lot.

By the time the Doctor caught up to Rose, she'd already dispatched the Hoix. Case in point, he thought. Breathing hard, they both stared down at the puddle of goo that had been chasing them around all morning. The silence was like a raised wall between them. It felt strange not to be yelling.

Rose blew a strand of crimped hair out of her eyes. Then, she shot him an 'are you mad?” look and said, “Who says 'not blue' when they mean 'red'? It's like saying, 'When you're out in the kitchen, don't pour me a glass of milk.' What does that tell me?”

“That I'm lactose intolerant,” he joked, nudging his shoulder into hers. 

Refusing to grant him even the suggestion of a smile, Rose stared silently at him for a beat too long. Then, huffing rudely, she spun about and, bucket in hand, started for the TARDIS. His grin evaporated and he groaned. This cold shoulder business was killing him. It had been three weeks since he'd stepped into it with both feet, three whole weeks without a touch or a kiss. He'd imagined she would forgive him over breakfast. But they'd hit an impasse over the annulment issue and she showed no sign of relenting.

And what did she have to be angry about? Nothing. Being married wasn't something to complain about. It was something to endure. As he'd told her repeatedly. She should look on the bright side. Time hadn't unraveled. 

“Or maybe,” he went on, jovially as he caught up to her and did a sort of twirl in her path, “I don't fancy milk. Maybe I crave a grapefruit juice or a beer or a blumberry smoothie. Now there's an idea. Nice blumberry smoothie, touch of rum in it. Whadya say?” He gave her another gentle prod.

“Not wanting blue isn't the same thing as wanting red,” Rose sniffed. 

“Big toothy monster choking the life out of me,” he said, pointing over his shoulder as if pointing might clear things up for her. “I could barely get the words out.”

“Red is shorter than 'Not blue,'” Rose countered, fumbling for her key. “One syllable. Much easier to say when the life is being choked out of you. Red. See?” He stepped around her, his key in hand. “And you've got respiratory bypass,” she added. Chilled, she hugged herself as she waited for him to unlock the door. Time was he would be hugging her. Instead, he stood aside to let her enter the warmth of their home. She brushed by him brusquely, but halted just inside the door. “Some people say what they mean.”

“Humans?” he inquired, bending to whisper into her ear. “Humans do things differently, you mean?”

She rolled her eyes and stalked away from him. “That's not what I said.”

“But you’re implying it,” he insisted as he stripped off his coat and hurled it blindly toward a support beam. “Implying that some species, say…humans, for example, ask for exactly what they want, ask someone to marry them, for example, instead of just…I don't know…refusing to go along with an annulment.”

“I was talking about buckets,” Rose said, primly. Carefully removing her jean jacket, she folded it over the railing, and then settled into their chair for two. Her body language easily conveyed it was now a chair for one. Feet braced on the edge of the console, arms crossed over her chest, she stared into the middle distance. “But now we're on your favorite subject. The way I see it we don't need an annulment. You died. It's 'til death do us part. So, we're not married.”

“Fine by me. If that was how it worked. But it doesn't work that way, does it? Because I'm not dead. Also, time didn't unravel. So we were married. Are married. Have always been married. And we're going to stay married.”

“What about my right to free will?”

“Nobody forced you to take my ruddy fish,” he snapped. “And so you'll know, respiratory bypass doesn't mean I can chat about the weather while a big nasty beastie throttles me senseless. It just means I can go without oxygen for a...Fulham,” He announced brightly, jerking to a standstill as he interrupted himself. He seized a fistful of his hair and tugged at it. “I knew I'd seen that boy somewhere before. Fulham, 1979.” 

“The one I ran past?” Rose asked. She was used to his mercurial topic changes, but a bit puzzled by this one. “Doctor?” she inquired when he failed to respond.

“The Elemental Shade,” he hummed, absently, his eyes misty and unfocused. “What are the odds?”

“I don't even know what you're talking about."

“The Elemental Shade,” he repeated, gesturing impatiently as if he believed she was being intentionally obtuse. “We chased it to Earth just before we...” He broke off, not wanting to mention Barcelona. After fiddling with his ear, he steeled himself against dithering, and pretended to concentrate on the TARDIS flight controls. His fingers danced over buttons and keys, programming Vortex variables without much guidance from his distracted mind. 

“I know about Shades. The shadow beings,” Rose said, catching on, but still confused. “From the Howling.”

“Insubstantial in their true form. They feed on any element in suspension...potassium, magnesium, iron.”

“Human blood,” Rose cut in, hopping out of her chair. “I remember. You said a shade loose in human habitation could decimate the population. Without potassium our heart stops. No iron and we can't breathe.” 

“Yes, and they're difficult to kill. Well, I say I kill,” he waggled his head from side to side, to indicate he wasn't satisfied with such an imprecise term, “but they can't really be killed, can they? Because they aren't really alive. Transmuted, maybe, same difference.” He peered at her from beneath lowered lashes, but quickly returned his attention to his dials and switches. 

“And that bloke I just ran by is infected?” Rose surmised, suddenly all business. “Come on. There's still time to catch him.” 

Darting by him on her way to the door, she was already halfway up the ramp when he caught her. No thought of her own safety, he realized with a surge of pride. Swooping an arm around her waist, he steered her through a u-turn as he said, “He's not infected. He never was. He's the boy we took to the orphanage. I saved him.” His voice took on the resonance of regret as he added, “But I was too late to save her.”

“His mother,” Rose breathed. Still in the shelter of his embrace, she looked up as she clasped his forearm, all animosity forgotten. ”I remember. She was so young.”

He glanced at her hand, gently stroking him. This was his Rose. His wife. She empathized with strangers and consoled gods. She had no awe of him. He was the last line of temporal authority. No one else in the galaxy thought of him as fragile, in need of comfort. He wanted to kiss her as he met her eye, but only held her gaze steadily for a long moment, drinking in her loving care the way a desert flower absorbed morning dew. 

Releasing a shuddering little sigh, she recalled her anger and shifted a short distance away from him. She was still very close. He gathered the hair from her neck and let it cascade through his fingers. Her fingers toyed with a venting coil on the console. She knew better than to tug on it like that, but he knew better than to scold her just now. Trying not to overreact to her proximity, or read too much into her continued silence, he turned his attention to the mundane. 

He rerouted the overloads to another vent and went on readying the ship for flight. Selecting a launch sequence, he punched in re-entry coordinates and leveled the pressure readings. The TARDIS beeped her understanding. After tapping a wonky dial with a knuckle, he started spinning the paperweight he used for temporal navigation. Where to go? Where to go? Barcelona was out. He could take her to a concert. Or the signing of the Magna Carta. 

“I don't want to do this anymore,” Rose said, softly. 

An electric shock seemed to pulse through him and he froze, one hand hovering near the hand brake. “You want t-t-to...leave?”

The room had a surreal haze about it. He couldn't sense the floor beneath his feet. His injured tone and stricken expression bought him a moment of her interest. She lifted her gaze and he saw tears glossing her eyes. They stared at one another for a heartbeat or two. Then, the horror on his face cut through her preoccupation. She gave a quick dismissive shake of her head and moved very close to him again. She smelled like warm tea, astringent with a hint of honey and peppermint.

“Oh...no, I don't mean...I just...I don't want to fight. All this bickering...like my mum and dad.”

The monitor screen flashed bright green, drawing his attention to suggested destinations along their proposed flight path. One planet caught his eye. Suddenly, he had an idea.

“No more,” he whispered and slapped the hand brake off. As soon as the rotor started moving, he cocked his head to peer at her and said, “Fancy a wedding?” 

Rose actually flinched. Of all the tactless things to say, “Fancy a wedding,” had to take the gilded biscuit. 

“No,” she said, flatly. Shoulders hunched to her ears, hands burrowed into her jeans' pockets, she scuffed back to the chair and collapsed into it. 

Acutely aware of those unshed tears, he kept his chin down, but peered up at her from beneath lowered lashes. At times like this, it was hard to believe she tolerated him at all. 

“Can't say I blame you. I'm rubbish at weddings, myself. As you've learned. Remember what happened at the last one we attended?” He realized his mistake before she could correct him. “Prior to our own, I mean?”

“Food poisoning,” Rose sighed. “I spent a week in hospital.”

“And the one before that?”

“Is that the one where the bride ran off with her bridesmaid?”

“Could be,” He chewed his lip as he thought it over, then said, “No, wasn't that Jack’s wedding in Kyoto? The one I meant was the one with the fiery serpent. Armageddon,” he waggled his eyebrows at her as he said, “Uh-huh, that’s about it for me and weddings. End of the world as we know it. I spent my very first wedding in tears. But this one is different. This is the one that goes right. You’ll love it.”

“I don't want to go to a wedding. Not even if the world ends after...not even if it's Princess Diana's.”

“Diana? Please,” he snorted, wafting a dismissive hand as he jigged about checking readings. “You call that a wedding?”

“She had a Cinderella carriage and a gown covered in diamonds and a bridal train as long as the church aisle. Yeah, I'd call that a wedding. Beats a cold fish on a plate.”

“Well, just about anything would,” he admitted. “But veils and carriages don't put you in the Michelin Guide to Weddings of Note. Diana was a blip in the expanse of history. Her little shindig can’t compare to the finest tourist weddings in the galaxy. Not by a long shot. Melianea Klaxis Hgotepteq Postlewaite-Wiggins, Empress of Sol and Andromeda, Protectorate of the United Colonies of Orion and Splee, Queen of Gorgon's Arch 6 and Divine and Undisputed Ruler of the Rim Satellite Fleet married on Earth. She had the moon done over in pink crystal.” Warming to his theme, he used both hands to frame the scenario in the air as he expounded. “I don't mean gilded or...bedazzled...I mean replaced. Blew up the old one cleared it off and put in something shinier.”

“She replaced the moon?” Though he could tell she fought to contain it, Rose couldn't help smiling just a little. “Wouldn't that cause earthquakes and flooding?”

“Oh, yes. Earthquakes, hurricanes, flooding, drought. One or two extinctions.” He beamed in cheery counterpoint to this list of disasters, inordinately encouraged by her smile. “Not to mention, a really nasty meteor shower. I told her it was a bad idea, but she never listened. Clouds of moon dust blocked out the sun for a week. Luckily they managed to Hoover it all up before guests started pouring in. But repositioning the crystal threw the tides off. Fixing that caused a slight realignment of the Earth’s axis. Kept the weather wardens busy for decades after. And reflected pink light beaming down meant nobody got a good night's sleep for over a year. Nearly resulted in economic ruin. Productivity plummeted.”

“Bet the people who manufactured those little black sleep masks made a killing.”

“Not to mention the caterers. Oh, and the ice sculptors. She had the Arctic ice flows carved up...into doves and pirate ships and such. Gorgeous really, sparkling under the Aurora Borealis.”

“You were there? Giving her advice?”

“Ah…yes…” So much for their returning camaraderie. “I was there. Not so much advising as protesting,” he admitted, his attention momentarily distracted by a blinking light. He pushed buttons at random until the light went out. “By the time I heard about the moon, they were lighting the fuse. The groom is seldom consulted about decorating decisions. One of the many things I loathe about weddings.”

“The groom?” Rose peeped. “You married...? Loved this...?” She struggled to find a more appropriate slur than ignorant slag. “Hang on, you mean you're taking me to _your_ wedding?”

He cut a glance at her from the corner of his eye, wondering if she would storm out of the room before he could explain. “Yes,” he said, carefully. “But let's be clear. I never claimed to love Melianea Klaxis. There was a treaty. To end a war. I represented one side. She represented the other. And she had no intention of honoring her pledges. She tried to assassinate me on our wedding night. You'd be surprised how common that reaction is.” He winked at her. “Or maybe you wouldn't. But you and Emma Louise are the only two who didn't at one time or other order my execution. And Emma barely knew me. So we can't really judge by her, perhaps she would have killed me if given the full brunt of my personality. Anyway, the pink moon fiasco was my seventh wedding.”

“You’re…?” She was glaring at him again. “Just how many wedding have you had?”

“Oh, a fair number,” he said, shrugging. “I’m not blindly prejudiced. Did you think it just came to me one day that I don't do domestic? That would be a tad shallow.”

“I thought you just hated commitments.”

“No, my antipathy is based on hard won experience. I've had…let’s see…counting ours…twenty-seven…” He chewed his lip, considering and then said, “No...wait...wait...twenty-eight weddings. I always forget about the Aztec princess. She’s like the Spanish Inquisition.”

“It’s no one _expects_ the Spanish Inquisition,” Rose corrected, absently. “And you're telling me I'm your...twenty-eighth...?” 

Frowning, she pressed the heel of her hand to her temple, obviously floored by the destructive magnitude of this latest bombshell. He did tend to be secretive about his past. On the other hand, he'd lived a very long time. If he sat down and started relating every head cold and heart break he'd experienced they'd never go anywhere.

“Twenty-eight is hardly a harem. But as it happens, I've only had five wives.”

“Twenty-eight weddings but only five wives? What happened to the other ones? Or do you just keep marrying the same people like…like Elizabeth Taylor?” A thought struck and she pieced things together in a way that made sense to her. “Or is it because you regenerate? You keep marrying the same people over and over again, every time you change?”

He shook his head. “It’s not about regeneration,” he said, with sympathetic tenderness. “The other weddings just didn’t take. I never seem to get it right, do I? It's sort of how your people can’t make toast.” 

The rotor stopped moving. They’d arrived. He drew in a deep breath, and then swept his arm in a wide arc of invitation. 

“After you,” he said. 

Rose paled. “I believe you,” she said, backing away from him. “I don’t want to see this.”

“Rose? There's no escaping it. We should have come here long ago. I need you to understand this.” 

She shook her head. “It doesn't matter,” she said. “We can just go back to traveling and...”

“It matters,” he insisted. “If you want to stop bickering this is the only way.” 

She didn't look convinced. Sighing, he said, “I didn't tell you about the others, Melianea Klaxis and Romana and the Rani and Emma because they were part of my life before you. Painful memories, every one of them.” Rose stared at him. Hurt again, and confused. All those times in his head and she'd never pressed for a commitment, never poked through his mind for reassurances. He didn't think he would ever understand her. He went for his coat, shrugged into it and spent a few moments adjusting his collar, before looking back to her. “This won't hurt a bit. Come on.” He held out his hand, fingers spread wide. After a moment, she crept forward and reluctantly took it. 

Their fingers interlocked, smoothly, like puzzle pieces designed for one another. He pulled her up the ramp toward the door, and then through it. Rose gasped. And he grinned down at her. She’d been expecting the glitter of a futuristic city, the glow of a pink moon. Instead, they stood on a rocky coastline. The sun was rising. Huge pterodactyl-like creatures swooped overhead.

“Welcome to the Crucible,” he said. “The origin planet of all life.” 

“It's cold.” 

“Go,” he tilted his head toward the open TARDIS door. “Fetch a jacket. I'll wait here.”

She left and he waited, not sure if she'd return. Glancing down, he noticed his tie. It was the same one he'd worn on Barcelona. A fighting tie, he thought and decided on the spur of the moment that it was unlucky. Not that he believed in luck, but there was no sense taking chances. He popped into the TARDIS to change. Rose was waiting for him when he got back. 'Free will at work,' he silently told the cosmos. Her curiosity rivaled his own. It was one of the many things he loved about her. She couldn't help wanting to know more, even if it got her into trouble. 

When he went to stand beside her, she asked, “Why are we here? And isn't this dangerous?" She lifted one foot and glanced at the sole of her boot. "Couldn't we crush some algae or insect and put an end to life as we know it?”

“Time Lord,” he reminded her, archly touching fingertips to his chest. “The TARDIS scanned for DNA traces and any irreplaceable lifeforms before we landed. Nothing underfoot but some random fluff. And I told you, we're here for a wedding.”

Rose put her boot back on the ground and considered him intently for a moment. "You changed your shirt," she said. 

"The other one didn't go with this tie," he told her. They studied the view, looking out past rocky arches to the sea. The sunrise sent golden and crimson threads of light across the sky. There wasn't another soul in sight, save the flying reptiles. 

“Fairly intimate affair, this," Rose said, sounding pleased by their growing sense of accord. "Not too crowded.”

He shot her a playful glance. “Very exclusive,” he agreed. He weighed his next words carefully before he spoke. “I don't know what's happening to you, Rose. It seems impossible. But you are changing.”

“Into what?”

He studied her impassively for a time, but did not answer directly. Then, looking, again, to the sea, he said, “For my people, this is the only sacred place beyond Gallifrey. Before we gave up everything having to do with unions, we used to pledge our troth by the Crucible. Time Lords are...were...a shifty lot. We considered ourselves above most of the trivial legalities. Conventional pledges don't apply when you can shed your identity as easily as we can.”

“How can a vow to the death mean anything if you never die,” Rose remarked.

“Exactly. And like you've said, contracts, marriage license, are just paper. Annulments are much the same. Meaningless. Eternity is a grand equalizer. All things fade to dust in time. Civilizations rise and fall. Their laws can hardly be applied universally. We needed something enduring, some binding symbolism.”

“The origin of all life,” Rose murmured her understanding. “You swore all of your oaths on existence itself.”

“The only abstract concept we all honored, yes.” He drew in a deep breath and slowly released it. “This is the only promise that has meaning, for as long as I exist,” he said. Did she understand? Hands clenched in his pockets, he slowly turned his head to face her as he asked, “How long are you going to stay with me?”

He sensed her relaxing. A luminous peace flooded her face. But she granted him only the ghost of a smile as she answered, “Forever.”

She held his gaze for a second or two cementing the oath, before returning her attention to the horizon. After a moment of reverent silence, she soberly asked, “How long do you want me to stay?”

He took a giant step to his right. Then, leaning into her shoulder, he scooped her hand into his and whispered gleefully into her ear, “Oh, a bit longer than that, I should think. A bit longer than forever.”

 

END THIS PART


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After all of that sex and melodrama, I thought we might all like a refreshing chapter about daily TARDIS life. There is a grand discussion of names other than Smith. And some revolutionary ice cream and Rose and the Doctor get stranded. Also, they dance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song that they dance to in this fic is Van Morrison's "Cleaning Windows"...you can find it here. http://youtu.be/ciK2n2MebTU But the best version is from Montreux in 1974, which is the version the Doctor and Rose have.

_Oh, the smell of the bakery from across the street got in my nose.  
As we carried our ladders down the street with the wrought-iron gate rows._

Amber light pulsed behind the TARDIS roundels and multicolored twinkles flashed across the console. The entire ship danced, wobbling gently from side to side. Rose Tyler kept her balance, despite the tipping floor and being twirled into dizzy disarray by her partner. Five years of time-traveling had given her great space legs. She felt completely at one with the rhythm of their ship. As long as nobody hit the handbrake she could stay upright through an ion storm.

“I went home and listened to Jimmie Rodgers in my lunch break.” 

Rose winked at the Doctor because she’d bellowed, “I went home for crisps and Jammy Dodgers on my lunch break.” 

She knew the lyrics but liked to tease him. He was teasing her as well, slowly stripping off his clothing, piece by piece. The closing ceremonies of the 2012 Olympic Games had ended with a tribute to Van Morrison. The resultant party atmosphere, and a close call with immaterial existence, had infected the Doctor with a jubilant sensuality. The definition of cool in his unnecessary shades, he puckered his lips as he unfastened the last button on his suit jacket. He let the garment slide down his arms while he grooved along with the music. After twirling it twice above his head, he let the jacket fly. The clear notes of his smooth tenor sailed above Van Morrison’s gravely baritone on the next line of the song. 

Rose fisted her hands in the fabric of her full skirt and rocked her shoulders in counterpoint to her partner's seductive pelvic swivel. She flashed the high beams on her smile to let him know he’d charmed her with his exotic dancer routine, but then, suggested via a gimme gesture that he remove one or two more pieces for the full effect. He leaned forward. She leaned back, taunting him. He stuck his tongue out at her, but, to her delight, hooked a finger into the knot of his tie. Her tongue was a pink garnish, adorning her grin as she watched him slowly work the knot loose. Pulling hand over hand, he snaked the length of the tie through his collar.

Neck-wear hurled after his jacket, he did a pirouette, one hand extended above his head. At the end of the spin, he slammed to a halt and played a bit of air sax. Rose danced in, slinking closer, a cobra drawn by his imaginary playing. Reaching up, she glided her hands along his shoulders to his shirt collar. Her fingers tugged at fabric until his top few buttons gave way. Laughing, he molded his body into the curve of hers. They skimmed around one another like daredevil pilots giving a precision flying demonstration. 

Rose did a slow controlled slide down his gyrating form, her palm stroking up his side as she sank toward the floor. His tensing muscles made her hiss with carnal delight. Her mouth watered just a little when she felt him quiver under her fingertips. He was a taut bowstring, pent energy craving release. She knew him well. Knew that any second now, he would erupt into motion. Hoping he would have her up against the safety railing, she was disappointed when he mastered his tremor. Controlling his kinetic impulse, he captured both of her hands, pulling her upright and tight against him. His dark eyes flashed as he hooked an arm around her waist. 

Mouth close to her ear, he sang, “I collected from the lady, then I cleaned her fanlight inside out.” Rose's temperature climbed with the innuendo. She freed one hand to fan herself as he went on, “I was blowing saxophone on the weekend in that down joint.” 

They did a few samba steps while Van belted out the chorus.

_“Tell me what's...my...line? I'm happy cleaning windows. And I'll take my time. I'll see you when my love grows. Baby, don't let it slide. I'm a working man in my prime.”_

The close-quarters friction was more than the Doctor could take. It made him jittery. He was prickling all over and knew Rose would like nothing more than to drag him back to their room. She didn't need the aphrodisiac these days in order to enter a dream state with him. Their connection ran far deeper than the physical. She could stir him from the other side of the time rotor. And he was sure he could reach her on the other side of the planet. But now was not the time for distractions. With a spurt of manic inspiration, he broke from their clinch before he could give in to temptation. He lunged at the TARDIS controls. 

Nearly mounting the console, he stretched for the audio dials to crank up the volume. Guitar and saxophone wailed with earsplitting intensity. Rose, already half deaf from the fireworks and crowds at the Closing Ceremonies, tossed her head back, laughing as she gave him a thumbs up. She continued to dance, whirling about, hips working a figure eight as she pumped her elbows. The Doctor skipped through a turn, before launching himself across the room. He caught her on the fly like a bald eagle linking talons with a mate and they swooped into a bit of intricate footwork. 

“I heard Leadbelly and Blind Lemon on the street where I was born,” the Doctor sang, his hand creeping up her spine to where her blouse gave him access to her skin. When he reached her bare shoulder, he shoved, propelling her out to the end of his anchoring arm. 

“Did not,” she yelled, mid-spin.

“I went home and read my Christmas Humphreys' book on Zen,” he insisted, passing her under his elbow for an extra twirl on her way back.

“Read your what?”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” the smirking Doctor warbled with Mr. Morrison, “Kerouac's _Dharma Bums_ and _On the Road_.” 

Confident Rose would look up every reference later, he felt no pressing need to explain. She'd been spending a lot of time in the library lately. Though determined to find literacy in his language, she was interested in almost everything, full of not only questions, but insight. They had that in common. And apparently, also, far-sightedness. Lately, she'd taken to squinting at the texts. He'd been harrying her about reading glasses. He'd whipped up a pair in square frames, identical to his own, but so far she'd refused to wear them.

Gaining both of Rose’s hands, he yo-yo-ed her through several quick spins. Breathless with giggling, she twirled easily, falling in line with him as he sashayed across the floor. He released her to do a little free-form Charleston, but quickly returned to her arms. Knowing it would please her, he skimmed up her body into the embrace. They swayed back and forth and launched into the chorus together, right on cue.

_What's my line?  
I'm happy cleaning windows  
Take my time  
I'll see you when my love grows  
Baby don't let it slide  
I'm a workingman in my prime  
Cleaning windows (number a hundred and thirty-six) _

As the song faded, the TARDIS gave a delicate shudder and stabilized, the central rotor gliding to a stop. 

“Ha! No hand braking,” the Doctor crowed. “Ten points. The perfect landing.” He celebrated the gold medal performance by sending Rose into a perilous death drop. 

Despite plummeting to within an inch of the floor grating, she completed the risky maneuver with relaxed grace. Her unshakable confidence in him was sobering. He felt his pulse hitch, when she smiled up at him. Wrists crossed to brace her, he widened his stance for extra stability. He hoped she knew he would never let her fall. They held the pose until the song ended. Then, he effortlessly lifted her to perpendicular again. Seeming inordinately pleased with him, she shined up into his face, eyes twinkling, smile bright. She was breathing heavily, chest heaving. Dragging his gaze from her eyes, he let it meander to her lips, and then further down to her expanding and contracting cleavage. Head tipped to the side, he stared, tingling all over. 

“Can you believe the only song I ever heard by him was that Moonlight one?” Rose asked. "Mum used to play it sometimes when she was missing Dad." When he didn't answer straight away, she followed his glance. 

“Moon _dance_ ,” he corrected in a distracted mutter. “As in, 'It's a marvelous night for...'” he added. “Also, _Brown-Eyed Girl. Warm Love, Full Force Gale_ and, my personal favorite, _Tupelo Honey_ ,” Levering his attention away from her breasts, he warbled angelically, “She's as sweet...she's as sweet as tupelo honey. Just like honey, baby, from the bee.”

Heat flared across Rose's cheekbones when his gaze lifted to intersect hers. His dark eyes flashed possessively. She wasn't used to him noticing her physical charms. Or calling her sweet, come to that. He liked to touch, but rarely ogled. And he hardly ever flattered her. Perhaps all of the bare skin they had on display inspired him. He quite obviously wanted to see more of her. But once again, he denied them both. Lips silently reproving, he reached out a hand. And fastidiously pinched a bit of fabric between thumb and forefinger. With a flick of his wrist, he twitched the slipping neckline of her blouse into a more modest line.

Stepping back to admire his adjustment, he announced, “Here we are, then.”

She struggled to cover her disappointment. “Here, where?” She asked, tilting her head to see past him, before starting for the door.

He dog-legged around her, blocking her path. “You tell me,” he said, one arm gesturing toward the console. 

Rose's suppressed a groan, her buoyant spirits sinking even more, as she sighted along his pointing finger. “Not another lesson? I thought we were done for the day. There was dancing. And you promised me ice cream.” 

“You’re the one who wanted to learn my language,” he reminded her. “Punching in coordinates is all well and good, but let's see how you do without prompting.” 

She put on her best sulky pout, but he just scratched behind his ear and looked expectant. 

After a bit, she crumpled under the weight of his expectation. He could out stare a cat. She shuffled to the monitor and scowled at it. “It looks like squiggles to me.”

“All right,” he said brightly, turning his back on her, “If you'd rather not...” He shrugged carelessly as he crossed the room to the Y-strut he used for a coat rack. “Makes no never mind to me if you can't read. Most of my companions were functionally illiterate in my language.”

“I didn't say I was giving up.” Rose's sigh puffed stray hairs out of her eyes. She was seeing double and it worried her. “It's just all this timey-whimy, whibbly whobbly stuff is mucking about in my head.”

“Oh, come on, all you have to do is remember what I had you program in. It's all there on the screen. You don't have to know anything about celestial navigation. This is just numbers and variables. Easy peasy. And if you ever hope to navigate the TARDIS, you’ll have to learn to read her language.”

“I am trying,” Rose insisted. 

“Then, prove it,” he said, his twiddling his fingers urging her to focus on the monitor. 

“What do you mean 'most of your companions'? Some of them could read?”

“I believe all of them could read. Even Leela. A few of could also read the interface. Romana, of course. And Nyssa. And Zoe.”

“Did they all do that cornering thing?”

“I'm sure Romana did in her younger days. As for the others, not likely. No one has ever been on such intimate terms with the TARDIS, before,” he hummed contentedly at her as he added, “Or me. No, Nyssa and Zoe remained steadfastly four dimensional. And you can stop stalling any time now.”

“Why can't the TARDIS just translate the coordinates into English?”

“Because she's not designed to accommodate humans. And even if she was, English is not a very precise language. Traveling through the Vortex ain’t like dusting crops, you know. Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that would end your trip…” 

Rose choked on a giggle, but quickly stifled it by biting on a knuckle. The aborted snicker stopped him mid-quote. She could see the wheels spinning as he examined what he'd just said. His face pruned. His nose wrinkled and that seagull vee formed between his brows. He ruffled his hair with the flat of both palms, as if hoping to jumpstart his brain via static electricity. Maybe it worked, because he brightened suddenly and exclaimed, “Han Solo!”

“Sometimes you amaze even yourself,” Rose said, confirming the source. Then, she leaned both elbows on the console edge, resting her chin in cupped hands. “And you don't have to go on about the dangers of time travel. I know how important these calculations are.” She changed her stance, sliding backward until, using fingers and thumbs, she could frame her view of the monitor screen. “It's just...I think the TARDIS hates me.”

“Nonsense. She adores you. No hand braking,” he pointed out. “She takes you directly home every time, straight into the living room more than once. And she never stops on a dime like that for me. I get tossed like salad. You've got the knack.”

“You're saying she knew it was me pushing her buttons?”

“Oh, yes,” he declared, proudly. “She's quite perceptive. She's hardwired to obey, of course. The interface doesn't give her much choice in the matter, but she is more than capable of inconveniencing you if she doesn't like the cut of your jib.”

“Cheers for my jib, then.”

He was putting his coat on, covering up as he always did before venturing out. Catching this from the corner of her eye, Rose deflated a bit more. Half into the garment and adjusting his collar, he noticed her body language and stilled, brows soaring in inquiry. Shifting to face him, she swept him with a smoldering glance, head to trainers, and then toes to mouth. Chewing her bottom lip for sensual emphasis, she sent her own empathic signal. He got the message, grinned and obediently removed the extra layer. Draping the coat over his arm for a moment, he transferred a few essential items to his trouser pockets. Then, he folded the coat neatly over a guard rail and sidled to her side for a peek at the readings. 

“Go on,” he urged, gleefully rubbing her shoulder with his, “Dazzle the teacher.”

“Tackle the teacher more like,” she muttered under her breath

Her stomach fluttered and her palms grew sweaty. There he was beaming confidence at her, scrumptious to his shoelaces, and she felt like the stupid ape he'd once called her. Their vocabulary lessons generally ended in mutual satisfaction, especially when he drew the conjugations directly on her skin, and they were admittedly instructive, but not very productive in terms of retention. Sex with the Doctor tended to put everything else out of Rose's mind. Even hitting the library two or three times a week hadn’t improved her understanding of his language one jot. Literacy eluded her. Written Gallifreyan might as well be decorative squiggles. It was pretty but meaningless to her. 

She took a deep breath, releasing it slowly to buy a little time. Relaxing her knees, she hunkered down a bit and made a great show of studying the alien script. 

“Let's see, now,” she drawled. She used her index finger to trace a few of the symbols. “We're...some place…tropical?”

“Good.”

“Hot. Sensual. Earth, of course,” she said cockily. 

“Is it?”

She nodded, ignoring the challenge in his tone and, still stalling, stroked her throat. The gesture earned her an audible catch in the Doctor's breath. The helpless little moan gave her an inordinate thrill. She noticed his state of dress again. He wasn't generally so vulnerable outside of their bed. Gone were the days of public bathes and sun worshiping. Even when they had sex in semi-public places, he kept most of his clothes on. Now, there was nothing between them but the thin cotton of his shirt. His cnidocytes had primed. She could see them creating goose flesh on the exposed skin at his collar.

“I'm going to say....Brazil?”

The burgeoning certainty of imminent sex vanished, when the Doctor cut his eyes to the side and snorted rudely. “You’re guessing.”

“I am not,” Rose protested, reeling back from him. He clicked his teeth together, baring an inordinate amount of them in a cheesy smile to show just how amusing he found her. Affronted, she stabbed a finger at the screen. “That’s longitude. And this swirly bit,” she circled her finger, “tells us we’re definitely on Earth.”

The Doctor narrowed his eyes, see-sawing his head as he made a grating noise. His lip curled. 

“What?” Rose yelped. “You're telling me that's not the symbol for Earth?”

“Ehm...Not so much,” he told her. 

To her horror, Rose's eyes filled with tears. But he didn't give her a chance to feel sorry for herself. He closed the short distance between them and wrapped around her, his arms folding across her chest. His exhaled sigh fanned the few hairs that had escaped her French braids, tickling her cheek as he spoke straight into her ear, “And that,” he pointed where she had, “is not longitude. That's the number five.”

Rose slumped, letting him support her. “A five?” 

She blushed but an altogether different sort of heat coiled very low in her gut when he brushed his lips along her collarbone. Every cell in her body turned magnetic when he stood this close to her. It was almost like she had her own cnidocytes. She reeled him in. Lust demanded satisfaction. Her mind skipped merrily back to two days to a tryst they'd had in an Olympic dormitory. They'd used the psychi paper and his sonic screwdriver to secure a room but they'd eschewed the bed. Remembering how he'd pressed her into the wall made her knees weak. 

What an amazing month this had been. They’d been trading favors through time and space. He'd taken her to concerts and parties and the Olympic games. She’d suggested motorcycle racing, stargazing and skinny dipping. He trusted her and she looked after him. It wasn't just physical now. They were married, united mentally and spiritually as well. They didn't even seem to need the drug to connect now. They had become very good at melding into one. She could almost reach out and pluck…

“Oh, no, you don't,” he scolded, backpedaling away from her. “Are you trying to read my mind?”

“No,” she denied quickly. But then, squinting over her shoulder at him, she admitted it. “Oh...fine. Just a little. And not reading, exactly. I'd say more like skimming.” 

“This is not an open book test,” he said, slamming the mental door in her face. 

“All right. There's no call to be rude about it.”

“You’re not even trying,” he insisted petulantly. 

“It’s too hard. I’ve been studying and studying, but I just don’t get it.”

“Bosh. You know full well that ‘swirly bit,’ as you call it,” he said, indicating the symbol with a nod of his head, “indicates we’ve landed. You see it every single time we land. This,” he emphasized, as he stabbed a finger at a narrow oval, “Tells us we are in your solar system, on Sol 3. And these numbers give us...not the longitude or the latitude, because that would be silly...but instead mark...? Anyone?” He paused, eyes wide and brows lifted in inquiry, before repeating, “Anyone? Bueller?” When she failed to answer, he huffed his disappointment through compressed lips and prompted her. “The Relative Cyclic Stability Quotient?”

“Oh, right. The...relative..quotient, yeah, I was just going to say that.” She pressed the heel of one palm to her temple, desperately trying to recall what it meant. It came to her in a rush and she snapped her fingers. “Our position in the spheres. Like I already...knew. Earth, yeah?”

He gave her a frankly appalled look. “Sol 3? This one represents the lateral turn of the Vession Tau Cycle.”

“You’re sure it’s not just a random doodle?”

“Tau is an Earth letter,” he said.

“Greek,” she intoned, loftily, “Is all Greek to me. But I know what I know and we're...some when...some time in Brazil…I'm going to call it...” She glanced down at her outfit. The Doctor had picked it out for her. It consisted of a white peasant-style blouse, broad belt and full red skirt. “1950.”

The Doctor's tongue pushed on the inside of his cheek, making a bulge just above his dimple. Exasperated, he tilted his head back until he was staring up into the rafters. He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eye for the long count to twenty. Rose thought about tickling him. 

“One day, Miss Rose Tyler,” he huffed, projecting the words into his palm before moving his hand away from his face and dropping his chin to target her with what he hoped was a quelling stare, “One day…that sassy attitude is going to get you into so much trouble.”

“I like getting into trouble,” she told him, fingers tugging at her left earring, a golden hoop.

“Do you?” He asked, as he traced up the back of her arm, his touch telegraphing promises for later.

Rose hummed and snuggled into him, clearly conveying there was no need to wait for what they both wanted. Though it cost him some visible effort, the Doctor did a glissade to the left. He sighted down the length of his nose and sniffed like a disapproving matron. His stern expression might have carried more censure if he'd managed to break off all contact, but his right arm had other ideas. Moving of its own accord, it embraced Rose at the waist, pulling her so close that, when she lifted her chin, her lips fluttered along the underside of his jaw. His insides liquefied and his breath caught in his throat. She definitely had the upper hand here and no fear of him. But when he tapped the monitor, she stepped back and pretended to study it. 

Staring sightlessly at the numbers before her, she leaned into him. Her fingers stroked his outer thigh and she kept darting coquettish glances his way. Under this assault, it didn't take long for his resolve to melt into a puddle at her feet. He shot another appeal heavenward but surrendered any pretense of irritation. She owned him, the minx. 

“Yes, all right,” he growled, shaking his head. “I've surrendered. You can dial down the seduction. And let go of my leg.” Circling her, he flourished an after-you arm at the outer door. “Let's go take a look, shall we?”

Rose trilled in victory, knees flexing in a bob of delight. Brimming with confidence, she practically danced to the exit. Her enthusiasm was contagious, inspiring such giddy heat in his veins he almost felt drunk. He'd caught a glimpse of the future this week. Something was coming, something terrifying. But his world seemed perfect now. Rose was his perfect match. He'd finally gotten the domestic right. His tongue curled behind his front teeth as he watched Rose yank open the outer door. Her lithe grace drew him the way the scamper of a string toy across a floor might draw a kitten. He tensed into stalking mode. 

Oblivious to her relentless effect on him, she paused on the threshold. Late afternoon sunlight limned her form, gilding her like the lettering of a medieval manuscript. The wind buffeting her braids brought an indulgent smile to his lips and he collapsed sideways into the edge of the console, perfectly content to watch her. Oh, yes, he knew physical hunger these days. There was a sense of vacuum beside him, the air seemed cold and desolate without her. More and more, she was leading him. He needed her close, so he followed her everywhere. 

“It’s beautiful,” she cried, casting a beaming glance over her shoulder at him. 

He uncrossed his ankles and, pushing off, clattered up the ramp to her side. Nurturing warmth penetrated him, increasing the closer he came to her. She burned like the sun, his Rose. All life seemed to turn around her and he was never cold or lost in her presence. The wind whipped her skirt around her legs as she stepped out onto broad paving stones. Salt spray peppered over them, stinging lips and eyes and dampening their clothes. They'd landed in the mouth of an alleyway, a few dozen meters short of an impressive seawall. Geysers of foam shot toward the sky every few seconds. The sun was just setting.

Rose shielded her tearing eyes with one hand and gazed out over an undulating indigo sea. Banners of lavender and pink clouds fanned across the sky. Glancing along the seawall, she saw it bordered a street. There were a number of couples about, lounging on the wall or walking hand in hand. The view seemed to inspire romance. Opposite the sea, elaborately carved stone buildings, four or five stories tall, caught the last rays of sun. They reminded Rose of faded film stars at an ocean resort. Their graceful wrought iron work and brightly painted facades belonged to another age. Their air of grandeur, however, was marred by chipped paint and mildew. Laundry hung from sagging lines on many of the balconies. 

The cars on the street were mostly outdated American models, hulking automotive dinosaurs from the 1950's. They, too, were painted garishly, electric blue Buicks or sunny yellow Chevrolets. All along the street tall, thin, wrought iron lampposts emitted smoky light. The weak illumination failed to impress the gathering dusk. Strains of Latin music drifted on the evening breeze. The notes of guitar and mandolin were barely audible over the sizzle and boom of the ocean waves against the seawall. The stirring breeze offered a welcome cool, but it was still stifling hot. The day had been muggy and the scents of jasmine, chilies and lime perfumed the thick air. 

“Cuba,” the Doctor announced. “Havana. 1991.”

“Cuba? Brazil? Same difference,” Rose said, with careless nonchalance. 

The Doctor’s brows climbed toward his hairline. His eyes were like saucers as he chirped, “In what universe?”

Rose smirked cockily at him. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, “In the same universe where 1879 is almost 1979, London looks very like New York and the moons of Algaretti are close enough to the moons of Maltonis that it makes no never mind.”

“Now, just a minute, I might I miss the mark on occasion, but…”

“On occasion?”

“See here,” he admonished, bristling a bit. “If I’m slightly off on my estimations of when or where we've landed, it’s not because I can’t read.” He jammed his hands in his pockets and turned away from her. But once he was facing in the opposite direction, he quietly conceded, “It’s because I can’t drive.”

“At last, the truth comes out,” Rose said, setting off in a random direction.

“Well, it’s not my fault, is it?” he cried, rushing to keep pace with her. He performed a half-spin to look at her as he caught up. “I never expected to be an adventurer. I was old and stodgy and a bit feeble-minded when I finally encountered the TARDIS. Must have been...oh...218 or thereabouts.”

“I don't believe you were ever stodgy. I've met him, you know...the first you? He seemed very sharp,” she grinned, devilishly as she added, “for a geezer.”

But he failed to take offense. “Shows you don't know everything,” he countered. “I was a stick. Pompous and stuffy. Set in my ways. Regular old...Time Lord. And symbiosis is a young man's game, Rose, make no mistake.”

“How did you end up managing it, then?”

“Accidentally. Long story. But there I was practically in my dotage, looking forward to a quiet life of contemplation, when I got sucked into the Briode Nebulizer of a Mark 40 TT Capsule. Zing! Zowee! Zap! Without so much as a by your leave or training course, the TARDIS and I bonded. Caused quite a stir in my circle, let me tell you. Personally, I think they'd given up on both of us by then.”

“You got in trouble?”

“More or less. And then, we were running for our lives, Susan and I. Running, running, running.” He paused to grin down on her. “Family trait, that. Talk about a sharp learning curve. Turns out there's a bit more to operating the Type-40 interface than punching a few numbers into the keyboard, took me five regenerations to figure that out.”

Rose thought about pursuing his mention of Susan, but knew it wouldn't lead to full disclosure. So, instead she said, “And you'd like me to pick it up in a few weeks?”

“You've got help. I didn't.”

“You’re not fooling me,” she told him. “We get lost because you like getting lost. It let's you show off your survival skills.”

“More fun, hey?” he remarked with a devilish twinkle that reminded her forcefully of the First Doctor. 

His arching brows and inane mugging, however, would never have worked for the stately gentleman he'd once been. There was definitely an air of youthful exuberance about him now. It secretly delighted her, but she put on a show of finding him trying, shaking her head and scoffing.

“If you want fun, we can go finish that striptease.”

“Oh, it's sex again, is it?” he declared, loud enough to inspire stares from several people, “An hour ago, you declared yourself completely sated. All you wanted was ice cream,” he reminded her as he gathered in her hand with his questing fingers. After threading her arm through his, interlocking with her at the elbow, he said, “You are a fickle woman, Mrs. Chuzzlewit?”

“Chuzzlewit?” 

Rose's sputtering bray of mirth nearly toppled her sideways. Even though she caught herself, the drag on the Doctor's arm acted as a hand brake and forced him to throw his weight in the opposite direction to keep them from falling over one another. Once Rose stabilized, he turned to her with an air of polite interest and asked, “Something wrong?”

She continued to grin, but recovered enough sobriety to hold up her free hand palm facing him in a traditional 'hang on a minute' gesture.

“No! Really,” she finally managed to say, sounding as stern as was humanly possible while burbling with laughter. “No more Dickensian names, please. I haven't recovered from being Noddy Boffin, yet.”

“Oh, but I love Dickens,” he whined, writhing a bit to emphasize how disappointed he was. “And we haven't even touched on some truly smashing names. Fancy me as...say...an Alfred Jingle or Ham Peggoty.”

“I know.” She swallowed some air and whooshed it out again to compose herself. Straightening her smile with an effort, she said, “And it's all my fault for asking you to pick something besides Smith. But I can't take much more of this. Kitty Nubbles?” she added, in pained appeal as they started walking again.

“Bit too close to Nibbles?” he guessed. “Perhaps. But I thought it rather inspired. How about...? Oh, I don't know...Martin...Marlboro...Murchinson? Murchison and Alexandra Climpson?” An excessively solicitous Doctor offered by way of an alternative. “Two very distinguished ladies from Dorothy Sayers. Nothing the least remarkable about their names,” he went on, checking both ways, before he towed her across the street. “And Murchison sounds quite like a manly human male, don't you think?” Pausing on the far curb, he said, “Or...Daisy and Bundle Brent. Brent, don't you see? From the Seven Dials Mystery?” Squeezing her fingers, he leaned close and, exuding satisfaction, intoned, “Dame Agatha Christie. Not that we must be literary. Plenty of good old fashion British names lying about in the phone directory. Bertie and Lindsey Rommel-Smoot? Tarlington and Giddy Poolitan?”

“Poolitan? Do you have any idea how hard it would be to keep a straight face if a desk clerk asked me if I'm Mrs. Peckard Poolitan? Or Aloysius Owlpellet?” Rose asked. “What's wrong with something simple like...”

“Smith? Tyler? Smith-Tyler? Tyler-Smi...”

“Harvey,” Rose interrupted him. “Or...or Bennet or...Swann? I could just about tolerate being Elizabeth Swann.”

“Swann?” He squawked. “But you don't like swans and Bennet? Bennet? Sounds rather Jane Austen-y to me.” The Doctor gave a little dolphinesque leap and crowed, “Kiera Knightley roles. Oh, topping.” 

This sent them both into such a paroxysm of snickering convulsions they were forced to support one another as they staggered to the corner of 23rd street and L. Neon lights flickered on a giant ice cream cone just ahead of them. Seeing the extensive, ragged line of people which surrounded the city block-dominating, open-air establishment, they both sobered. 

“Coppelia, the People's Ice Cream Parlor,” the Doctor announced. “Fifty-four flavors and not one of them tastes like Capitalist Repression. Bound to have a bit of a wait.”

“Look at the length of that queue,” Rose said. “We'll be here for hours.”

“Yes, well, it's scenic, isn't it? And there's a secret to get seated earlier.” Steering her to the left, he pointed down the block to another line. “This way,” he said, as they began circling the building.

“There's more than one door,” Rose said, her dulcet coo caressing him for being clever.

“We find the shortest line. And then, presto...”

“We're in.”

“No, we wait. But, possibly not as long.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As it turned out Coppelia sat customers in groups, so it took less than an hour to get a table. Rose spent the time getting to know her neighbors in the queue. The Doctor used his time to calculate the number of scoops of ice cream served since the inception of the establishment, the number of different flavors possible given the limitations of the human palette, and the number of ways you could transport ice cream without it melting. He was just starting on his second attempt to mentally reconfigure the Borillian Extrapolator to allow for the ice cream sandwich when the queue moved. Once they were seated, Rose stared glumly at her dish of one coffee and two chocolate scoops.

“I thought you said this place had fifty-four flavors. I pnly counted six.”

“And today is a good day,” the Doctor said, beaming. “I picked this particular day on purpose because I knew they'd have banana and coconut.” He gestured at his dish with his spoon. “Sometimes they only have two flavors. Shortages, you see. The United States Embargo has hit the frozen treat vendors almost as hard as it's hit automotive sales.”

“Can't they import things like cars and ice cream from...I don't know...Japan or Germany?” Rose asked, exchanging a smile and wave with a young girl she'd met in line. The girl and her mother took a nearby table. “It seems a bit harsh to let millions of people suffer like this, just because America doesn't like the leadership.”

“Are they suffering?” he asked, glancing around the colorful and busy scene. “They seem content enough.”

“Anyone would look content eating ice cream,” Rose countered. She leaned her cheek against the knuckles of her free hand. “It must be better to be free, than oppressed. Stands to reason.”

“True. True,” he agreed. “Though we can't judge oppression by one standard. Are you forgetting about the Ood. Or the TARDIS, for that matter. There are people, species, who enjoy a smattering of oppression.” He slurped up a liquefying spoonful of banana, then said, “Admittedly, humans don't, as a general rule. And I'm sure many here long for mint ripple chip and a slice of Capitalist pie.”

“Is the TARDIS oppressed?”

“Well, not really. I wouldn't say oppressed. But she isn't free...exactly. She's been constrained against her will. Perhaps, persuaded would be a better way of putting it.”

“But she's so powerful.”

“Indeed. Her kind are rather like the Isolus. She can even manifest solid objects in a pinch. Do you remember the plasma sea where she was spawned?” When Rose nodded, he continued, “It's a portal of sorts. A dimensional gateway. Like your Bermuda Triangle...only bigger. The living part of the TARDIS exists there still...transdimensionally, of course, not on Gallifrey, but off of it...sideways. On a tangent plane. She is anchored to our universe by the interface.”

Rose nodded her understanding. “The door and engines and computers and such.”

“Exactly,” he said, beaming at her with unvarnished pride. “All of the trappings of civilization have been draped around her living form. There used to be a lot more of it...roundels and rivets and ramps, oh my. My home away from home. Her shackles and chains. But ever so slowly, as I scavenge, I'm setting her free.”

“Because there are no more spare parts,” Rose said

“Right in one. I have had to dismantle the interface bit by bit, here a panel, there some insulated wiring. To my surprise, I found she was more sensitive this way. I can touch her flesh to flesh, vastly deepening our empathic link. Much of what you see now is her living tissue. She's more being than machine. Do you know the entire interior once looked like the library, like an ordinary building on my home world? They buried the TARDIS alive. Small wonder she was balky.”

Rose focused on a salient point in all this. “The TARDIS was compelled into service?”

“More or less. Technically, it's impossible to truly force her to do anything. She's far too powerful. For example, she could simply eject us into the Vortex at any time.”

“Now you tell me,” Rose said. 

“She won't. You can trust her. She might not be as compelled to serve me, but we understand one another. She's always looked after me.”

While he was speaking, Rose's line of sight drifted, lazily following the course of his spoon as he dipped it into his dish. The banana ice cream seemed to be melting faster than the coconut scoops. He put a great deal of attention into consuming every bit of it, licking up every straying drop from his spoon and fingers. And this, she thought, repressing a giggle but allowing a small smile, was exactly why she'd asked for ice cream. Cones would have been best, but she could still enjoy spoon licking.

“Why is it we can't keep ice cream in the TARDIS, again?” 

“For the same reason ultrasonic velocity in cheddar cheese is temperature dependent,” he said. “There's a research paper on that. I can bring it up for you when we get back to the TARDIS. Essentially, the molecular structure of the fat molecules degenerates when exposed to temporal fluctuation. And you need that structure intact for appropriate mouth feel.” 

“It goes gloopy, you mean?”

“When we're lucky.” Gazing longingly at her nearly full dish of melting ice cream, he asked, “Something wrong with yours?”

“No, it's fine,” she took a bite. 

“You could have a nibble of my coconut if you like. I'm afraid I've eaten all of the banana.”

“That's a lot of sugar. You're going to get bouncy,” Rose laughed, extending her spoon to claim some coconut. “And I see you eying my dish, if you'd like a bite of my chocolate, go ahead.”

Eager as a child, he scooted to the very edge of his seat to reach. He used one hand to catch any drips, as the other conveyed a large and messy spoonful of chocolate across the table from her dish to his mouth. Chocolate dribbled down his fingers as he wrapped his lips around the brimming spoon. Rose took a moment to savor the spectacle of orally stimulated Doctor. He groaned in pleasure and it was all she could do not to echo him. Eyes closed, he squirmed as the treat slowly melted on his tongue.

“Mmmm, oh, that is good,” he moaned. Then, he opened his eyes and winked at her. “I do like ice cream. And it's so unfair.” His spoon went back for a second helping from her dish. “Lousy temporal mechanics. It pains me to speak ill of the TARDIS. But if they'd installed her intake valves one level below the Dark Matter Well, the cascading event horizons wouldn't collapse right on top of the Rombini Rods and I would have been able to stabilize the molecular structure of ice cream. But there's really nothing I can do with the current arrangement. It's intrinsically unsound.”

“Is that why we can't have babies on board?” Rose asked, casually flourishing her spoon. “The...cascading horizons of...dark matter?”

The Doctor stilled, his next mouthful of chocolate suspended at his lips. This was new. Very slowly, he lifted his gaze to hers. There were only a few topics they habitually avoided. But babies, like the door to power inside her and who had the better rugby team, were on the short list. Though, he supposed, they'd broken the taboo on children during their most recent adventure. On their way to the Olympic Games, they'd crossed paths with an immature Isolus. Separated from its brothers and sister, it had been throwing its weight around a suburban neighborhood, acting very much like the toddler it was. 

The Isolus, as a species, wield tremendous power. Even an immature one possessed sufficient control over the ionic spheres to snatch millions of living organisms out of space/time and deposit them in an invisible holding pen. Capable of converting matter to energy and thought into substance, an Isolus was one of the few beings more powerful than a Time Lord or his TARDIS. Lost and alone, this one had isolated a girl named Chloe Webber from her mother. It had meant no harm. And, in fact, did everything in its considerable power to ensure Chloe's happiness, up to and including, kidnapping a number of neighborhood children to keep her company. But the end result of its 'snatch and cage' approach was a wave of terror for the humans involved. 

Rose was waiting for an answer. He cleared his throat, lowered his spoon and asked, “Where does that question come from?” 

She looked down and away, lashes veiling her vision, the tell-tale sign of a coming lie. Feigning nonchalance, she shrugged. “I was just curious.”

“About temporal mechanics?”

“I was thinking about the Isolus,” she blurted. “How you wanted to protect it.”

“It was a child, lost and alone.”

“Yes...but...you said you were a dad once...” she began, her voice cracking midway through the statement, “When we were arguing about Chloe and the Isolus. I said it was being a brat and you said it was just misunderstood. Then, you said you knew about kids because you were a dad once.”

“Grandfather...father,” he said, drawing her along logically.

She was having none of his evasion. “It's not the same, being a father and being a dad. Anyone can be a father. That's just biology. You were talking about discipline and such. You lived with a child?” He took a deep breath and held it, pulling into himself like a hermit crab retreating into its shell. His manner suggested she was pushing too far, but she didn't let it go. “But you can't have children on board...so...does that mean you...what? Settled down...in a house?” He stared at her with guarded dismay, astounded by this outpouring of touchy subjects. She misinterpreted the expression on his face. “If you'd rather not tell me...”

“No,” he relaxed out of his stiff posture. “No, it's...fine. I'm just....surprised. Are you sure you want to talk about this? I thought this particular subject was...verboten. Susan and all. You don't want to be a mother, ever? But if you really want to know,” he began cautiously, pausing to scratch his head.

“I want to know about you.”

“Well, first you're quite right about the Dark Matter Well. But babies and ice cream? Not a parallel I would draw. The molecular structure of a living organism...? Far more complex than the chemical composition of a dairy product. Still,” he drawled, wincing and rubbing a hand across his cheek. “There is a certain something to be said for a greater stability in the Rombini polarity sequence.” His hand glided around to the base of his skull and latched on to the back of his neck. “If we had a different type of TARDIS...but, there's no sense wishing for that. And I wouldn't think even a completely shielded array, the sort of thing you'd get in say...a Mark-85 would allow you to safely carry a child to term. Not while traveling through the Vortex. There are just too many chemical equations involved in DNA replication. Get one of them out of place and...” Falling silent, he stared at her placidly for several seconds, and then said, “We would have to settle somewhere, yes. And I did. Why do you ask?”

Rose dropped her gaze and shrugged one shoulder by way of answer. 

“Rose?” He said, and then sighed. “Yes. I was a dad. I helped raise Susan, when she came to me, and my third wife had two boys from an earlier marriage. I had amnesia at the time, but I remember being a dad. I, also, had children with the Rani, because we were matched by our clans, but I wasn't involved in their upbringing. And I didn't have children with Romana, who I married for reasons of State”

Toying with her spoon, Rose kept her head bowed. She drew a swirly pattern in the soupy cream dregs at the bottom of her dish. “Phakulkikuligt,” she said, in beautifully pitched Gallifreyan. The Doctor started in surprise. Tapping the tip of her spoon next to the symbol she'd just created, Rose repeated the alien word. A moment later, she translated, “The number eight.”

The Doctor craned his neck for a better look at her drawing. “It is!” It was. She'd not only said something in his language, she'd written something as well.

She smoothed the number away with the back of her spoon and immediately drew the symbol for the number seven. Working quickly she counted down from eight to one. “And this is zero,” she said. Tongue between her teeth, she grinned at him. “Not bad for a trained chicken, yeah? Counting backward in sequence.”

Hunched forward in his seat, he chuckled along with her. “Not bad. Not bad at all.” When she lifted her gaze to meet his eye, a sort of tender sobriety overtook him. He pressed his lips together, dampening down his giddiness, before saying, quite softly, “And you're not a chicken.” His expressive mouth took on a contemplative, only slightly smirking, cast as he added, “I would never marry into the poultry family...much too flighty.” 

“But we could use the eggs,” Rose joked, weakly, her smile melting into a distracted frown. 

He'd been watching for this and saw it coming this time. Saw her lose focus as her line of sight shifted to a spot just over his right shoulder. “Don't...” he warned, sliding his hand across the table to seize her wrist. But the look of burgeoning horror on her face told him it was too late. She was turning the corner. 

The metal legs of his chair grated on the stone flooring as he scooted closer to her. Intent and serious, he spoke in a low tone by her ear. “Rose, listen to me. Whatever you're seeing, it's not real. Not here and now. You're looking into the future...or the past. Whatever it is, don't try to help or fix it. Let it fade. Just let it go.” 

At first, she didn't seem to hear him. He tightened his grip on her, dropping an arm around her shoulders, determined not to lose her. Forgoing words, he went deep into her mind, searching for the confused tangle of inhuman sensory input that had stolen her attention. 

_Rose, look at me._

_Get away._

Her psychic push caught him off guard and he tumbled in the dark, losing his mental bearings. Reality winked back into existence around him as Rose broke the connection. She gasped and jerked out of his arms, shuddering as if half frozen. He blinked at her in confusion. Her head wobbled, as if she were an improperly operated marionette, but she managed to orient on him. “Wha-what?”

“There you are,” he said, strained but optimistic. He placed his palms flat on the table, holding on to his solid state.

“Doctor?” 

“Yes. Here. Present!” Lifting one hand, he waved. And was overjoyed to see her pupils contract as she focused on his wiggling fingertips. “How about you?”

She exhaled in a whoosh, and then rubbernecked, glancing rapidly around at the mundane scene. Sun shining down. People eating and laughing and talking. “I...was I...? Ice cream,” she said. 

“Have a little,” he advised, dipping a spoonful and holding it to her lips. “It'll help.” Relaxing, she opened her mouth, content to be fed. “Just let it melt on your tongue. Experience it. The texture. The flavor.” He inhaled with her. “The chocolaty aroma.” 

“Mmmm, lovely,” she said. 

He knew the creamy sweet treat would help her recover her humanity, her sense of immutable place and time. Once she'd savored and swallowed, she perked up again.

“I saw that girl,” she told him, in a throaty whisper. A slight dip of her head indicated a table behind him and to the left. She was afraid to look directly at the spot. And he didn't have to. He knew her young friend from the queue was sitting there. “She was older...with a man...and...” She squeezed her eyelids shut. “Doctor, she's going to suffer...can't we help her?”

He wanted to tell her they could. He wanted to say they would come back in a few years time and rescue this child, and every other child, from pointless horror. He was a Time Lord after all. He could do anything: stop the world from turning, break it apart like an egg. But what good was he, with all his power, if he couldn't stop the everyday suffering of her people? 

He told her the truth. “We can't.”

“But...?”

“Oh, we could interfere...steal her away from her mother, perhaps,” he said, carefully. “We could take her from the only home she's ever known. Deposit her in some other country. Or come back in a few years to kidnap her, take her across time, to the stars, to another world. But we can't guarantee she will never suffer. Even if we stayed here. Became her parents. Watched her every move. Eventually, something would sneak up on us. Get past our guard. You can't foresee everything, Rose. It's one of the hardest lessons to learn. Trying to think of everything would drive us mad and in the end we wouldn't be able to keep her safe forever.”

Seeing his message sink in, he felt a chill wash through him. His last words seemed to echo in his mind. _Keep her safe forever. Keep her safe._

The wobbly wheel threw him out of his body. A howling maw manifested behind Rose. He'd seen this particular vision before, once in a post coital dream and again in the fireworks of the opening ceremonies. He didn't know what it was. But, it terrified him. A storm was coming, a wailing nothingness. It threatened to swallow down the whole world. There was only one way to appease it. In exchange for sparing everyone else, it would take her from him. Take his Rose. There would be nothing he could do but let her go. He shook off the grip of cold despair. He would do something. He would. When the time came, whatever the cost to his honor or his happiness, he would pay it. Rose would not vanish into that hellish void.

“Doctor? Can you hear me?” Rose was snapping her fingers in front of his nose.

He flinched, but then, noting her worried expression, flashed a sweet grin. “No need to snap,” he told her. 

“Thought you were wandering off there,” she laughed, placing her hand over his. “I don't think I could find you the way you find me.”

“Nonsense. You got me back from the Isolus. I'll... Oh, I say!” he exclaimed, staring at her desert dish. “Phathiakulkwedia! Doctor and Missus, for the hotel registrations, don't you see?”

She didn't. “Number Ten?” She said, frowning. “You want to be Dr. and Mrs. Number Ten? Why not just call ourselves Dr. Downing and Dolores Street while we're at it?”

“But it's perfect. I am number ten,” he insisted. “The tenth. And you're bound to remember it because of our...encounters with my other selves. What could be simpler?”

“Simple, but silly.”

“Human names are the same, really. You're named after a flower and a builder's apprentice. Back in ye olde naming times, this one's John and that one's John John's son. Johnson, yeah? Yeah?” He nudged her. “Or Chandler, if your great, great, great, great, great-grandfather made candles. Farmer, if he farmed. Peddler, if he peddled. Wheelwright if he...wheel...wrighted. Why else to you thing there would be so many more Young's then Elders?”

“John the younger,” Rose said. “Young John.” She tried the suggested name on for size. “Dr. and Mrs. Phathia...”

“..KulKwedia.”

“...kul--quid...”

“Ed,” he corrected. “Short for Edward....Kwedia.”

“Bit of a mouthful, isn't it? We'll be forever spelling it out. F-a-t-h...”

“Pha...Thi...A...Kul...Kw...Edi...A,” he spelled in his own alphabet. 

Rose's spoon traced the letters in her dish as he said them. Filled with a justifiable pride, she trilled, “I think I've got it.” But her elation was short-lived. The shine of accomplishment faded from her eyes, replaced by dull dread as she considered her newfound knowledge. 

“How?” she asked. “How do I know this? How can I see things?”

He drew in a quick breath and held it, staring at her with wild-eyed surmise. Mouth open, he let a few meaningless noises click at the back of his throat. He had no answers for her. Finally, he shook his head. 

“I'm sorry, as I keep telling you, I don't know. You shouldn't be able to do the things you do. Your mind has been...expanded...far beyond what is normal for your species. Whatever happened when you looked into the Time Vortex....? What we do together...? None of it is natural for humans. Not at all. Come to that, it's not natural for me.” He shrugged slightly as he acknowledged this. “If I had to hazard a guess...I suspect your sudden recall has something to do with...” Starting violently, he nearly toppled sideways out of his chair. 

“Pants. Ow!” he yelped, and then again, “Ow! I've been pinged.” He clawed frantically at one of his trouser pockets and, to Rose's amazement, extracted marbles, a feather, a sling shot, psychic paper and, finally, her mobile. He skidded the phone across the table. ”Why are you pinging?” he asked, addressing the phone directly. “Shouldn't you vibrate or ring or sing a jolly tune?”

Rose snatched for the phone, exclaiming, “Why is my mobile in your pocket?”

The Doctor got his hand around it first. “Why is it turned off? And more to the point, why did you try to leave it on Hecate Six? Hmmm? Who are you avoiding? Sarah Jane?” Curious, now, he popped the mobile open to check the identity of her caller. “It's your mother. She's left a message.” He coughed, surprise making him sit a little taller in his chair. “She's left fourteen messages. Three of them in the last hour.” 

“Give it here,” Rose ordered, holding out her hand, palm up.

Keeping his thumb on the open/close lever, he let the phone slide slowly shut. He tapped his chin with it, while contemplating Rose. Finally, he mused, “Now, why...are you ignoring your mother?”

“I'm not...I'm just...” She broke off, with an impatient huff, letting her hand fall to the table top. “She's got another boyfriend.”

“Tell me something new.”

“This one's different. He's too young for her,” Rose said, but he could tell by the way she ducked his interested appraisal that there was more to the story.

“Well..say no more,” he sighed, leaning back in his chair. “If there is one thing I can't abide it's cradle robbing. None of this May/December nonsense for me. Nothing more off putting than a couple with an embarrassingly large age gap.” Sniffing, he lifted his brows, while his lips pressed into a faintly amused line. 

Rose rolled her eyes and heaved a put-upon sigh. “Yeah, all right. Whose the mind reader, now?” She slid forward in her chair as she went on, “The truth is, though, that's part of it. Our age gap. I don't know how to tell her.”

“Tell her...?”

“About...us. Barcelona. The Crucible. All of it. Any of it.” Her register kept going up until she was squeaking breathless sentences. “I haven't even got around to telling her we...” Slumping, she wafted her hand between them. “You know...? She doesn't even know we're...intimate.”

The Doctor snorted in dismay. “Oh, thanks for that. I needed cheering,” he laughed. Sobering just a bit, he shook his head, before saying, “Your mother thought we were shagging the second time she set eyes on me. I doubt confirmation will shock her.”

“It's not the shagging,” Rose told him. “It's the...changing. She hated me working in an upscale shop. Said it gave me airs and graces. She's never going to understand 'seeing around corners' or what we do together. She's still expecting me to get over all of this. To come home one day and marry a milkman.”

The Doctor shivered. Shadows seemed to deepen around him. The air thickened as if clouds, heavy with rain, had moved in to block out the stars. He tipped his head back, arching in his chair to gaze up at the sky. It was a clear dark blue, but that didn't matter. A storm is coming, a voice whispered in his head, keep her safe. 

“Something to be said for milkmen,” he heard himself muttering. “They know how to store ice cream in a solid state, for starters. None of that...temporal disintegration. You could do worse than fresh butter and cheese.” 

“If you're going to be silly...”

He favored her with a doting smile, his right hand stretching out to envelope hers. “Sorry. I'm distracting myself with inappropriate humor as I prepare to face the Wrath of Jackie. Do you think she'll murder me?”

“No, but I might, if you keep on,” Rose said. Pushing her chair out and standing, she shifted the grip of their hands, weaving their fingers together. He swung her in a wide arch around the table. They took a moment to stare into one another's eyes, before heading off together.

“You reckon Mr. Chuzzlewit had the good sense to take out a life insurance policy?” the Doctor remarked with studied casualness.

“Could be. Could very well be,” Rose said, recognizing an opening gambit in one of their favorite games: Old Married Couple. They'd played it before his regeneration, frequently involving Jack in their improbable spats. Stroking her chin with her free hand, she considered her response, and then said, “We Chuzzlewits are a sensible lot.”

“You'll need proper identification if you mean to follow up on insurance." 

"That's why Rassilon invented psychic paper."

"And, once again we find you have absolutely no use for your Rose Tyler passport. One day you'll admit you only asked for it so you could seduce Mickey one last time.”

“Small wonder I murdered you, if this is how you go on about my old boyfriends.”

“You'll never collect your millions, in any case."

"Millions is it?"

"Could be. But it doesn't matter. I'll be popping up again in a few minutes claiming fraud and foul play.”

“With a different face,” she reminded him. “What are you going to say to the police...the part of Dr. Chuzzlewit, recent murder victim, has been recast as a gap-toothed fellow with a stoop?”

“A stoop?”

“A stoop,” she confirmed, “But ginger-haired." He skipped a little, giddy over this, and Rose felt like her cheeks were getting strained with all the grinning. "You'll be laughed out of the police station.”

“Fair point,” he conceded, pillowing his head against hers. Her hair was down soft against his cheek. They walked silently down the darkened street, skirting potholes and the puddles from an earlier rain. A few blocks further on, within sight of the TARDIS, he declared, “What a vexing husband I must be...refusing to lay down and die properly. It's just struck me, you'll never be a merry widow.”

“The concessions I make to cruise around the universe in a time machine,” Rose sighed. “I should have listened to my mother. 'Marry a milkman,' she said, 'you'll always have butter and cheese.'”

“I think it was me who said that...just now...back there...” 

Letting go of her for a moment, he pointed over his shoulder with one hand as the other fished in his trouser pocket for the TARDIS key. He searched all four pockets, twice. Then, stood very silent and still, considering all of his options, including panic. 

After a minute or so of pondering, he looked at her with a mildly worried expression and asked, "By any chance, did you happen to bring your key?"

 

END THIS PART


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor and Rose are helped out of their Cuban crisis by an old friend. We arrive at "Love & Monsters" and the Doctor and Rose return home to see Jackie. Jackie sees more than she ever expected to see. And, despite all her efforts to be very understanding, doesn't understand.

PART TWENTY-TWO

Mobile phone loosely cradled in hand, Rose Tyler slouched against the side of the TARDIS. The rough wood bit into her bare shoulder, but didn't bother her enough to justify switching positions. She was trying to remain optimistic or at least calm, but her confidence waned with each passing minute. They were drawing unwanted attention, now, standing next to the police box. It had been just over an hour since they returned to the TARDIS. So far, two police cars had slowed as they passed and a number of people had stopped to stare. Rose watched with mounting disillusion as, once again, the Doctor applied the universal key of his sonic screwdriver to what he'd always told her was an impregnable lock. There was a sharp squeal and a bit of smoke, but nothing more promising.

“You remembered to bring a feather and a slingshot with you,” she remarked, with only a tinge of exasperation coloring her habitually bright tone, “but forgot your key?” 

“I was a bit distracted,” he reminded her, casting a smoldering glance in her direction before peering at the readouts on his screwdriver. “All that...dancing.” Easing his glasses out of his shirt pocket, he put them on to check the numbers, again. By the sigh he released, Rose guessed they still weren't getting anywhere. 

“No change?”

“Recriminations are not helping.”

“Just recapping,” she said, with a forced smile and false bat of her dark lashes. 

“Well, recap our assets, as well, then. One, I'm brilliant. Two, you're quite...persuasive. A handy combination of skills to have in a dictatorship.”

“Assets?” Rose mused. “Let's see...you’ve got a sonic screwdriver. And I’ve got a mobile phone. We could call roadside assistance...if we weren’t stuck in Cuba...in 1991...with very little money and no means of identification.” Remembering how Jack had said much the same thing the night they'd met, she tried her hand at imitating him as she said, “Well, the assets discussion went quickly.”

A slight upward twitch at the corner of the Doctor's mouth showed he'd caught her reference, but he didn't comment on it. He could seldom be baited into discussing Jack. “It's not as bad as all that. We’ve got your passport and the psychic paper.”

“My passport is from 2004. You don't think Castro's secret police will notice that sort of thing?”

“We’ll survive.” Straightening his knees, he stood from his crouch and, whipping his glasses off, winked at her. “Honestly, you know we will. You and me. Me and you.” As he tucked the specs away, he looked up the street toward the Hotel Nacional. “We might need to lay low for a few weeks. But late twentieth century Earth? Oh, yes! This is a fantastic time and place to get stranded. Lots of alien traffic, coming and going...going and coming. And as long as the revolution has ATM machines,” he paused, frowning, suddenly not so sure of himself, “Hmmm? I wonder if they do.”

“Let’s hope so. I've grown used to a life of leisure. Did you ever think...here we are in possession of a locked police box and…? Wait! Hang on a minute.” Rose sprang from her slumping posture into energetic mobility. “How _can_ it be locked? Neither of us had a key. Didn't you tell me that was what triggered the locking mechanism? We walk out with a key and the lock codes to our genetic patterns.” Inspired by this logic, she threw herself around the corner of the blue box, crowding him away from the door. “Are you sure you've tried just...?” She jiggled the handle, twice, producing no results.

The Doctor gave her a pained look. “Yes, I did try jiggling the handle. It's a simple gravity lock. No genetic override in play. The TARDIS knows we're missing but she doesn't know we're outside.” 

“Great,” she sighed, an icy fog rolling in on her mood.

He donned an apologetic grimace, culled from his repertoire of extreme facial expressions. “The good news is there's no shielding either. I should be able to break in...given time.” He was the picture of diffidence. It went all the way to his trainers.

Even though he was blatantly manipulating her, Rose's coolness evaporated and her ready good humor returned. “We've got time,” she said, gripping his wrist and squeezing “You'll work something out. And even if you don't, it's still an adventure.”

“It's just...” He hesitated and glanced down, scuffing his toe through the loose gravel underfoot. “It is my fault. If I hadn't forgotten the key...or reinstalled the automatic systems for your training flights..." He reflected on his mistakes for a moment, before going on to explain. “I don't generally use them, automatic programs, I mean. Too many glitches. And besides...Time Lord...expert user and so on...and this sort of thing can happen...I should have known...should have remembered things go wrong on training flights.” 

A new thought occurred, making him twitch as if he'd been smacked. He sprang back a bit, inhaling sharply, but recovered his balance almost immediately. Lunging forward, he caught Rose by both arms at the elbow and, peering at her with a renewed sense of urgency, said, “Tell me you remembered to activate the buffers against temporal drift.” When she gaped at him, he shook her gently. “The blue button? The shiny blue button, I said you must never ever forget to press?” He groaned aloud at the dumbstruck expression on her face. It was as good as a guilty confession. “Right after engaging the hand brake?” he peeped, forlornly.

“There was no...”

“No hand braking,” he recalled on a sighing exhale. Releasing her so suddenly she staggered, he dropped his arms to his sides. His face fell into grim lines as he accepted the direness of their plight. Rose, he saw, was still several steps behind him, but catching up quickly. Head tilted back and jaw jutted forward, he mulled over whether or not to spell out the implications of her rookie mistake. 

“This is bad?” she guessed.

“Bad, yes,” he sighed, still gazing up at the stars. “Though it makes things much simpler. Now, we won't have to worry about explaining the police box.” A small squeak escaped Rose's closing throat. He lowered his chin to target his bleak gaze on her, and saw understanding flit across her face a beat before he said, “Because she'll drift off in a bit.”

“Drift off? No! We've got to do something,” Rose said, gaining her voice but losing her composure. Her galloping pulse caused a ringing in her ears.

“I am doing something, several things in fact,” The Doctor assured her, with a maddening air of inner peace. “Unfortunately, not one of them is helping our situation.” He shifted the screwdriver from his left hand to his right and gently hooked an arm about Rose to guide her out of his way. As he glared at the lock, he seemed to switch moods and topics. “Do you have any idea what happens if straight after you land on Rigel 127 you dash off after a reptilian drug lord and his band of cutthroats leaving the TARDIS door standing open?” When Rose shrugged on shoulder, he returned his attention to the lock again, squinting at it, eyeball to keyhole, and said, “Tribbles.”

“Excuse me?”

“An infestation of Tribbles.”

“Tribbles? Like on Star Trek? _The Trouble With…_?”

“Yes, very like,” he sighed, nodding in weary sarcasm. “If, instead of fluffy balls of purring affection, you are imagining voraciously breeding, glittery-eyed, armor-clad locusts with an appetite for destruction.” Flexing his neck this way and that, he grimaced in pain. Rose circled to give him a one-handed massage, easing the tension from his corded muscles. When she'd finished, he smiled up at her and went on with a little more of his usual pep, “They swarm. And sing. Imagine the grating sound of a million metal-tipped fingernails on the world's biggest chalkboard and you'll have some idea.” Rose winced. “Now, imagine hearing that for seven long years, every time you turned your back on the little buggers.”

“Speaking from experience?” 

He sucked in his bottom lip, audibly popping it out again, before answering her. “Back when Ace was learning to push all the right buttons, we got into a serious spot of bother with the Rigelian Free Traders, a load of cutthroats and mercenaries. We left the door open.” He stood to glare at the door, too much white showing around his dark irises. A few more noises, mostly teeth and tongue clicks, later he said, “I didn't want that sort of thing to happen, again. So...I installed the training wheels,” he nodded toward the TARDIS. “There are a few latent safety features on the primary operating system. They kick in if the designated driver make a misstep in the landing sequence, overlooks any of the standard protocols.”

“Like using the handbrake?” Rose surmised.

“Or pressing that blue button.” 

“So, this failsafe system kicked in and locked us out? And we don't have our genetic override because we've left our keys at home?” 

“That about covers it. Ever notice the deadbolt on the inside of the door?” 

“I wondered about that.”

“Does much the same thing,” he told her, “Takes priority over the genetic overrides. Just in case anyone with a key goes rogue on me. Gets infected with the Mara? Joins forces with Fenric the Destroyer of Worlds?” 

“Couldn't they lock you out as well?”

“Ah, well...there's the downside.”

He dialed up one of the more lethal settings on his screwdriver, and took aim at the lock. There was a brilliant blue flash. Rose turned her head, shielding her eyes with an upraised hand. When the sparkling dazzle cleared from her vision, she saw the metal on the door: handles, hinges and lock, glowed white hot. The metal, wet from sea spray, steamed for several seconds. 

“If you melt it, we'll never get inside.”

Drawing a deep breath, the Doctor blew it out in an extended huff at the lock.

“The big bad wolf approach,” she said, suppressing her grin. When he didn't answer, she searched his face for some sign of returning hope. “Would you like me to give it a go? Hey! Maybe I could reach the TARDIS psychically, tell her to let us in.” 

He glanced up, eyes twinkling fondly. “I wouldn't mind your mother finding me a tow truck.”

“I wonder if she knows any Cuban fire fighters? I thought the control panel was stubborn, yeah? But it's lucky I didn't have to get through the front door or you'd still be on Satellite Five with Captain Jack.”

Head bent over his work, the Doctor shot her a couple darting glances as he reprogrammed the screwdriver. “How much do you remember about that?” he asked, casually. “Satellite Five? Jack?”

Suddenly, it was her turn to be evasive. She looked beyond him to the sea. Her body language making it clear, she didn't want to talk about her memories of that day. She did remember it, however--the flood of endless power surging through her, reducing Daleks to their composite atoms, resurrecting the dead. It had terrified her seeing the Doctor as tiny, an insignificant spec in the whole of creation. He was everything to her. 

“Just...flashes,” she said, focusing on the dark obscured horizon. “So...? Are we stuck here?”

“Not necessarily,” he said, standing again. “There are sixty-five trillion possible combinations for a gravity lock. Trying them all will take most of my lifetime, but I could hit on the right one at any moment. A minute from now. Later today. Tomorrow. Next month. Until the TARDIS drifts, we have hope.”

“Hope is a good emotion,” Rose said, stepping closer to cuddle his arm. She stared up into his face. “I rather like hope. And mind you, it does make a girl proud, knowing she’s put your short term memory on the blink. You a Time Lord and all, supposedly asexual.”

He compressed his lips as he turned his head to face her. “Call your mother,” he ordered, delivering a chaste kiss to her brow before gently disentangling from her grasp. “She's wondering if I've gotten you killed or stolen you away forever.”

“What would I tell her?”

“I don't know,” he said sounding irritated. “Tell her you're sorry you didn't ring her sooner. Tell her about communist ice cream. Mother/daughter things. It might be her last chance to hear from you for a few years. When we lose the TARDIS we'll lose your signal booster. The next time you see her, you'll be almost the same age.”

“There's a cheery thought,” Rose sighed, glancing at her mobile, but stalling. “We could talk about menopause. And what to do for crow's feet. Trapped in Cuba for the next,” she did the math, “sixteen years? I suppose I'll be back working in the shops.” She shot an inquiring glance at him. “Unless you have a trade of some sort?”

“I'm a doctor,” he yelped, offended she'd forgotten.

“Are you? And where's your license to practice, tucked away in the library?”

“I can always forge something suitable to this time. Not to worry.” he pointed at the phone in her hand. “Dial. Maybe your mother can fire up Mickey's old laptop and find us a locksmith.”

“In Cuba, circa 1991?” Rose retorted. 

“Small family businesses endure,” the Doctor said, “some of them might still be around in 2007.”

“The assembled hordes of Ghengis Khan couldn't break through that door, but you think a Cuban locksmith can get in?”

“I think I can get in. I think a Cuban locksmith will have tools I can rent or borrow.”

“So we're relying on my mum's Internet skills to save us? Good plan. Even if she knew how to access the Web...” She broke off, considering the idea. “You know...it's a shame we don't have the Cybus Network here. Then, we could use my phone to...I don't know...call the TARDIS...?”

“Wouldn't work. Even with a much more advanced network at our disposal, the TARDIS is a closed system. She's impregnable, impenetrable. What we really we need is a...Oh!” He gasped. His hands flew to bracket his temples, but hovering a few inches shy of his head, didn't clutch his hair. He simply stared straight ahead for a moment. Then, whipping his adoring gaze around to intersect her interested one, he declared, “Rose Tyler, you're a genius!” 

“True,” Rose laughed. “What's brought it to your sudden attention?” 

Instead of joining in on the joke, he brandished his screwdriver, waving it about in front of her as he demanded, “Phone.”

“What...? What did I say?” Noticing the screwdriver in his hand, he hastily dumped it into his pocket. Then, he stuck his hand out again, snapping his fingers, irritably until she surrendered her mobile. “All right. Here.”

“Computers,” he told her, busy pressing buttons and scanning the tiny screen for something. “They're all connected. You might have to come at them via a roundabout way, but...” He found whatever he was looking for, hit ENTER, and then, TALK, and held the phone to his ear.

“You're going to try to hack into the TARDIS computers? Using a mobile? You just said that was impossible.”

“It is. The assembled...hackers of...Genghis Khan wouldn't be able to break through those firewalls. No, we need a man on the inside. Oh, hello,” he said into the phone, his face splinting into a sappy grin and his tense manner dissolving into syrupy sweetness. “Yes, yes, it is. Recognized my voice? Oh, fine. Fine. And you? Yes...certainly. Right! Oh, no, she's here, listening in. Lent me the mobile. And how have you been? Everything going along...well, swell, satisfactorily, swimmingly...?” There was a longish pause while he listened. “No belly button, hey? Fascinating. Still investigating...?” He took a another break in the exchange. “Did you? So you like the presents? Oh, no...a few toys in the attic...it was nothing really...”

“There's a battery life limit,” Rose remarked, giving him the petulant eye.

The Doctor covered the mouthpiece and softly chided, “No need for that tone. Just catching up a bit.”

“Well, before you wander off into a discussion of your ten-inch record collection,” Rose said. “You might remember we could lose the TARDIS at any moment and phone access to the next century.”

“You referenced Aerosmith,” he declared, beaming proudly. After she smirked back at him, he tilted his head to indicate the phone, hand still over the mouthpiece, and said, “I need to jolly the old girl along. Can't call out of the blue demanding favors without spending a moment on the pleasant...Ow!” He'd place the phone to his ear as he spoke , but jerked it away immediately. Rose heard the tinny shrill of Sarah Jane yelling something. “There's no need to shout at me,” the Doctor shouted at the receiver. Then, he gingerly brought the phone back to his face.“Yes, quite right. Didn't mean to imply you required...no, I realize... Yes, certainly.... Listen, is K-9 about? Oh...” he grimaced. “I forgot about that...black holes...yes...well, you'll just have to patch me through. Mr. Smith? Smith? No, I don't think so. Just hold the phone up for K-9 and...right...I'll hang on.”

“What are you doing?” Rose asked. The Doctor shook his head, admonishing her with one finger to wait. Hearing the sound of piped music, she grinned. Sarah Jane had him on hold. “Is that _The Girl from Ipanema_?” 

He rolled his eyes, fidgeted and, lowering the phone, started to explain what he was doing. “While it is true we can't hack into the TARDIS directly. We do have someone on the inside. All of the K-9 units are interfaced with one another and...Oh, hello, K-9,” he said brightly. “Who's a good dog? Yes, Sarah Jane told me. That sounds very impressive. And you're looking after her? I knew you would. Listen, Rose and I are stranded and we could use your help. Mark these coordinates.” He rattled off a bewildering series of numbers and letters, waited for K-9 to acknowledge them and then said. “Yes, that's right. Tell him to go open the front door and let us in.”

“The librarian,” Rose crowed, poking the Doctor's shoulder. He caught her against him in a one-armed celebratory hug. 

“Good dog. Thank you. Do you have this number? If your brother has any trouble, give us a jingle. Pat yourself on the head. See you soon.” There was a brief pause, and then he said, “Yes, she's still here. Yes, all right.” He handed the mobile to Rose. “Sarah Jane wants to say hello.”

Rose took the phone. “Hello. And thank you so much.”

“The nerve of that man,” Sarah Jane growled. “Jollying me along...indeed. Next time, do me a favor and you make the emergency phone calls.” She laughed, suddenly. “And come over for tea when you get back to the twenty-first century. I want to know how you ended up locked out of the TARDIS in the first place.”

The two women chatted for a few moments, before Rose rang off. She stared at the mobile in her hand, chewing her lower lip indecisively. She could feel the Doctor's eyes on her but she didn't look at him. Making her decision, she quickly punched the speed dial number for her mum. The phone hummed in her hand as it rang the distant line. 

“Hello?” Jackie Tyler said.

“Mum?” 

There was a desperately lonely note underneath the happiness in her mother's voice when she cried, “Rose? Where have you been, sweetheart? I've been calling and calling. It's been three weeks with no word.”

“I know. I'm sorry.” Tears blurred Rose's view of the ocean. She sniffed and hastily dabbed at the corners of her eyes. “We've been...busy, traveling. And I can't talk long, now. We need to keep this line clear. But we're on our way home. I'll tell you all about what happened when we get there.” She smiled, as the nature of the background music penetrated her awareness. “What's that you've got playing?”

“What?”

“The music. Sounds very romantic. I'm not interrupting anything, am I?”

“Oh...it's nothing. Just...something on the radio. When do you think you'll be home?”

Rose glanced at the Doctor. “We're on our way.”

“Oh, I'm so glad,” Jackie said, but she didn't sound it. She sounded wrung out and weary. “I'll see you soon.”

“As soon as we can manage.”

“All right,” Jackie said, softly. “Be careful.”

There was a soft click from the TARDIS door as Rose closed her mobile. “The door is open, Master, Mistress,” K-9 yipped near her ankles. 

Startled, Rose glanced down, but then smiled and said, “Thank you, K-9.”

“It was nothing, Mistress. It is a treat to get out of the library. I am seldom needed upstairs.”

As she followed him into the ship, she said, “We should invite you up more often.”

“There is no need to trouble yourself, Mistress. I am programmed to be self-sufficient.”

“And very good you are at it, too,” the Doctor cooed. 

“Praise noted, Master,” K-9 said, wagging his metal tail as he trundled away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I just can't help thinking there's something wrong.”

“How do you mean?”

“She sounded...I don't know...listless?” Rose said as she stuffed dirty clothes into her backpack. “Or depressed? I'm worried about her.”

The Doctor dismissed her concerns with a wave of his hand. “Probably just having a bad day. Touch of the blues.” he suggested, while considering the ties in their shared wardrobe. 

He only went to the larger wardrobe on special occasions these days, and so his selection of shirts and ties remained constant. It was one of the many ways he'd begun schooling himself for eventual settling. Someday, he and Rose would have a normal house with finite closet space. He was making sacrifices, preparing for the transition. Though he hadn't gone so far as explaining this to her, yet.

“No, this was different. She's been missing Mickey a lot. I hadn't realized they'd gotten so close, but she talks about him all the time. Keeps breaking out the old photo album, every visit. I wish she had a few more friends.”

He peeked around the cupboard door, his expression reflecting concern. But he had no idea what to say to comfort her, so he remained silent. Watching her don a fresh pair of knickers, and then jeans and a reversible blue and lavender hoodie, he thought of something he'd meant to ask for a long time. 

“Why do you always take your mother a bundle of dirty laundry? The TARDIS cleans your clothes far quicker and easier, without generating all of those noxious pollutants.”

Rose slipped on a windbreaker and stuffed a final sock into the sack, before answering. “Maybe I like the fresh scent the dryer sheets leave in my jimjams,” she said.

“That fragrance is carcinogenic,” the Doctor informed her, wrinkling his nose. “And the TARDIS washer makes your clothes much softer.”

“All right, if you must know everything,” Rose chuckled. “Doing my laundry makes my mum feel needed. And, if I only have a few weeks worth of dirty clothes,” she said, shouldering the load, “it looks like we've only been away a short time.”

“I had no idea you were so devious,” he teased.

“Yes, you did.”

“Yes, I did,” he agreed, beaming as he latched onto her offered hand. 

They took one more moment to enjoy their privacy, leaning into each other before setting off. As she lifted her face to look up at him, the Doctor deposited a sweet kiss on her lips, knowing it would be the last romantic contact they would have on the visit. Rose never encouraged him to affection in front of her mother. On the other hand, it was unlikely Jackie Tyler had missed the signs of his devotion. Surely, his admiration of her daughter went beyond obvious. And she had to have some idea why they always slipped back to the TARDIS together for a few hours, during every visit.

On the way out, the Doctor double checked the handbrake and pressed the blue button. Rose conspicuously fingered her key. Despite his having removed the automatic programming from the ship's memory, they weren't prepared to take any more chances. The lock still clicked closed behind them, but the shields didn't activate. If they needed to they could get back in, even without K-9's help. Still, it was good to know they had back up in the library.

“We should get K-9 an electronic chew toy or something,” Rose said. 

“He's quite fond of bouncy balls,” the Doctor told her. “And quantum equations.”

They discussed where to get a present for a fifty-first century robot in the twenty-first, as they skipped along hand in hand across the common area. The Doctor held open the building door for Rose, in gentlemanly fashion, and they climbed the stairs to Jackie Tyler's apartment. Rose wondered when it had stopped being home to her. She vowed to make a conscious effort to refer to it as her home for as long as her mother lived. And there it was, in her head at last, the thought of her mother's dying. She quickly shoved it back under the rug of denial. When that day came, Rose knew she would sever all ties with Earth. But it seemed a long time in the future. Someday soon, however, she needed to tell her mother the truth about her changing life, about the Doctor.

Reaching the apartment, she entered as she knocked, and called, brightly, “Mum, we're home.”

There was no answer. The apartment felt cold and deserted. The Doctor noted a faint smell of rot in the air, food turning in the refrigerator, perhaps. Or rubbish left too long in the bin. He tensed and signaled Rose to get behind him. Something was wrong. Rose sensed it too and had to be physically restrained from rushing down the hall. After a bit of whispered arguing, they crept forward together, checking each room as they went. Jackie's bedroom was empty, the bed unmade, a rumple of tangled sheets. Mail and a few magazines spilled across the floor, but there were no true signs of struggle. 

As they approached the living room, Rose relaxed, springing forward with a glad cry, “There you are.” 

There was Jackie Tyler, dressed in a housecoat and slippers. She had curled up in a corner of the sofa. Surrounded by crumpled tissues, she seemed to be staring sightlessly out the window, tiny blue headphones plugged into her ears. She started as Rose entered her peripheral vision, but she didn't leap up with her usual animation. Her red-rimmed eyes and scarlet nose offered as much evidence of extensive weeping as the pile of crumbled tissues on the couch beside her. Hastily gathering up her tissues, she scrunched them into a ball. She tucked the wad under her hip, popped the headphones free of her ears and held out her arms for a hug. 

“Oh, Rose,” she cried. “You're here.”

“What is it? What's wrong?” Rose said, dropping into an embrace, but casting a worried glance back at the Doctor. 

He shifted from foot to foot, fiddling with his earlobe. Head lowered, peering up at her, he'd gone rather goggle-eyed and pale. “There she is,” he said weakly. “I'll just...go...” Rose scowled. “Not away, naturally,” he hastily assured, “But, I could be more useful...somewhere...” He dithered even more, tufting up his hair and obviously at a complete loss, when Jackie broke into noisy sobs. 

“You shouldn't have come here,” Jackie said, “You shouldn't have come home.”

The Doctor's frantic gaze had been darting here and there, searching for some avenue of escape, but this caught his attention and he focused on her, his brows arching, head tilted. “Why not?” 

“Make us a cup of tea, yeah?” Rose told him. She shifted to look into her mother blotchy, tear-stained face. “Nice cup of tea, just the thing to settle the nerves,” she said, gently stroking Jackie's shoulder.

Little by little, the full story came out. Apparently, her mother's new boy-toy hadn't been interested in romance. 

“He was after you, Rose,” Jackie said. “All along. He was after the pair of you.”

Rose stiffened, but tried to keep her fears in check as she asked for clarification. “What do you mean? He was after the Doctor?” She gave Jackie a gentle shake, just enough to help her focus “What did you tell him?”

“Nothing,” Jackie cried. “I swear. I would never let anyone hurt you. Or him.” 

“All right,” Rose said, mollified. Ashamed of her impatience and how long she'd neglected her, she gave her mother another hug. “I know you were just taken off guard. If I'd been in touch more, none of this would have happened.”

“Only, maybe, I did say you were traveling,” Jackie admitted. “And that I didn't see you very often.” She sniffled and looked away, embarrassed by her loneliness and her mistakes. Tugging another tissue from the box on the side table, she blew her nose, before resolutely going on, “Anyway, he already knew about the Doctor. I didn't put it together until later, but when we met, he said he belonged to some club, investigating paranormal phenomenon. I didn't pay it any mind. Lots of people are interested in aliens these days.”

“Linda,” the Doctor intoned, from the doorway. 

Rose met his eye. “Who?”

“Not who, what. L.I.N.D.A. It's an acronym. Stands for London Investigation N' Detective Agency. They're sort of my...fan club.”

“And they actually use the letter N for AND?” Rose asked, amused by the inanity of it all, despite her irritation. 

“I didn't say they were imaginative, just that they follow me about snapping photos and posting them on the Internet. You've met one of that sort.”

“Clive. Yeah,” Rose agreed. “So, now they know about my mum, what's to stop them coming here in droves?” Neither Jackie nor the Doctor had an answer for her. The kettle whistled. 

“Tea!” the Doctor said, brightly, popping off again even as his wife ground her teeth in frustration. 

Giving Jackie's shoulder a final squeeze, Rose got up and followed him to the kitchen. She paused in the doorway to watch him pour water into mugs. He had a graceful lack of efficiency, almost everything he did was a dance of stops and starts. 

Voice pitched low, she said, “I want to find this bloke. Talk to him. See what he was after.”

“We don't even know his name, yet.”

“Elton Pope,” Jackie said, causing Rose to gasp and spin around. 

“Slippered feet, mum,” she accused. “You half-startled me.”

Shuffling into the room, slippers scuffing on the tile floor, Jackie sank into a chair at the small dining table. “He's twenty-eight,” she said. “A Capricorn. I don't know where he lives.”

“We'll look him up,” the Doctor said.

Jackie shook her head. “He's not in the book. I think he rents a room somewhere. Or so he said. Maybe that's not even his real name: Elton.” She fell silent, contemplating the lies. When the Doctor set a steaming mug in front of her, she wrapped both hands around it and went on, “He's got a cell phone. But I threw the number away day before yesterday.” She glanced toward the overflowing trashcan, before remembering, “In the outdoor bin. The one at the foot of the stairs?” 

“Probably gone now,” the Doctor said, “Pity! I could have used the number to trace him.” 

“I don't want to phone him,” Rose growled, her dark eyes fixed on the Doctor. He couldn't help noticing the gold specks glinting in their depths. “I want to find him, wherever he is, right now.”

“We can't just...” the Doctor began, only to be cut off by Jackie.

“Don't go,” she pleaded, half rising from her seat. “You've just got here.”

“We'll be right back, mum,” Rose said, dismissively. But the stricken expression on Jackie's face made her reconsider her rash reaction. “Or...yeah,” she agreed, exchanging worried looks with the Doctor, “we can stay for a bit. Hey, now...shhhh,” she said, dragging a chair around the table to sit by Jackie, who had teared up again. Settling on the edge of the seat, Rose soothed, “It's going to be fine. This can all wait.” She skated her hand across the table to clasp her mother's wrist. “You just drink your tea.” 

“It tastes funny,” Jackie said, sniffing the spicy aroma. “Not my brand. Different, but nice.”

Rose's eye widened slightly. She shot a questioning glance at the Doctor and caught his almost imperceptible nod. Rotating his hand, he flashed her a glimpse of something in his palm. It was a black package, one she easily recognized. The logo on it matched the black and purple tag dangling from a string in her mother's tea. Rose hadn't noticed it at first, but the Doctor had made Jackie a cup of his special blend. The warm drink would put her to sleep in no time. 

“A little something we picked up on one of the Martian moons,” he joked.

“Space tea?” Jackie mumbled. “Is that why I feel so lightheaded?”

“He's kidding, mum,” Rose said, softly. “It's from China. Sixteenth century. A few rare herbs, but nothing dangerous.”

Jackie yawned. “I do feel better, more relaxed.”

“It will help you sleep,” Rose said, standing. “You probably just need little nap.” She signaled the Doctor and together, they levered Jackie up and guided her unsteady steps to the bedroom. 

“Oh, the house is a mess, sweetheart.”

“Never you mind about the mess. We'll tidy up. Tell you what,” Rose said, as Jackie stretched out on her bed. “Scoot over and I'll sit with you for a little while. You can tell me what you'd like for Christmas.”

“I'll be in the...” the Doctor said, gesturing over his shoulder, as he backed out of the bedroom. Rose, curling up next to her mother, gave him a brief nod. 

After wandering into the living room, he perched on a sofa arm and waited. He could hear the gentle rise and fall of Rose's soothing voice. Her rounded tones harmonized with, and mellowed, Jackie's shriller ones. Eventually, there was quiet. Twenty minutes later Rose strode down the hall, the militant light still clearly visible in her eyes. Rising to greet her, he said, “Everything settled?”

“She's sleeping. But things won't be settled until we deal with Mr. Elton Pope.”

“He's probably quite harmless,” the Doctor said, hoping to keep her temper in check.

“He upset my mum. Nobody upsets my mum.” Her tone brooked no room for discussion.

“Right. Yes. Once we get back to the TARDIS, I can cross reference the name with the tax roles. He must file income tax. We can stake out his....”

Rose cut him off, impatiently. “We're not going to stakeout anything. My mum hasn't slept in two days. She was afraid to call us. Afraid she was the bait in some trap. Do you see these?” she asked, drawing a fistful of photos out of her windbreaker pocket. “She says he had these with him. He had pictures of me. I want you to take me to wherever he's at right now. So, I can speak to him.”

He stared at her for a moment, and then shook his head. This was the first time she'd asked him to do something he simply couldn't do. “But that's...impossible,” he told her, spreading his hands in defeat.

“You told me you can do anything.”

He had told her that, once upon a time, back when he was a leather jacketed loon. “Honestly, I can't. He's a person. Not a planet. He doesn't have fixed coordinates.”

“You found my Dad.”

“At the wedding. And just before he died. There were records.”

“Elton Pope has records, too," she told him as she tossed the photos down on the coffee table. "He's got to be somewhere. Just...find out where...and take me to him.”

“How do you suggest I do that?”

“I don't know...” she said, exasperated, and grasping at straws, “biorhythms?”

“Biorhythms?”

“Why not?”

He tilted his head to one side. “Because there are no such thing?” he suggested.

“Course there are. We know he's a Capricorn. That means he was born in December or January, twenty-eight years ago. We can search all the hospital records for London. Can't be too many babies named Elton. I suppose that is his real name. Who'd make something like that up?” 

Fascinated by the workings of her mind, the Doctor hunkered a bit to peer into her eyes, wishing, not for the first time, that he could watch her brain churning through Rose-logic. “Of course, simple really,” he said, with a distinct air of humoring her, “And once we know exactly when he was born...then what?”

“We follow his life along. He had to go somewhere straight after he was born, right? We just have to figure out where, and then follow him about...on up to today...using his biorhythms.”

The Doctor stared at her for several long beats, before chirping, “That's completely mad.” After shaking his head, as if saddened by her mental breakdown, he began to tick things off on his fingers. “First, he'd interact with other people. Every step of the way, he's making complex decisions. He's not living in a binary world, is he? It's not off/on, yes/no, left/right. You're talking about game theory, with unknown...” he corrected himself, “No, make that unknowable variables. The first decision isn't even his. His parents would decide where he went after hospital. So, we'd need their biorhythms, as well, wouldn't we? Assuming there was such a thing as a biorhythm, which there absolutely is not. Second,...”

Rose didn't wait for his second point. Red faced and seething, she spun away from him. “I'll just ask her myself,” she said, striding toward the front door. 

Standing on tip-toe, craning his neck to see her, the Doctor called, “Ask who?” 

“The TARDIS,” she yelled, over her shoulder as she barged out the front door. 

He gave a little indecisive bounce and whined, “I knew you were going to say that.” 

As the door slammed closed, his restless gaze fell on a photo she'd dropped, and just like that he had a surge of inspiration. Snatching up the picture, he tucked it into his pocket, before darting after Rose. It wasn't like he needed to hurry. She wouldn't get anywhere asking the TARDIS about biorhythms. He could just wait for her inevitable failure, and then explain his own idea. There was no need to trot after her. But a tiny part of his generally sensible mind had turned quite superstitious. It reminded him that Rose Tyler had already convinced the TARDIS to do something impossible once. Was he really so sure she couldn't get...well...somewhere if she tried again? 

He caught her elbow just as she took the top step. “Hang on a minute. I need to borrow something from your mother.” 

“I hope it's an umbrella,” Rose muttered, as she braked. Glancing up, she'd noticed storm clouds gathering overhead. There was already a drizzly mist in the air.

But if Doctor heard her, he didn't acknowledge it. As soon as she'd stopped moving, he'd released his grip on her arm and whirled to shoot back up the steps and into the apartment. He bounced out again ten seconds later, declaring, “Hairbrush,” as he brandished one. 

“This is no time to work on your back combing.”

“Hairbrushes mean hair,” he told her, launching down the steps at speed. He skirted her without stopping, racing recklessly on, certain she'd follow him. “Hair means DNA. And DNA means...?” Hitting the ground floor, he spun in a skipping circle to throw a delighted word at her. “Biorhythms.”

“But we aren't trying to find my mum,” Rose reasoned, picking up her pace to run beside him. 

His attention was split between the path ahead of him and fishing things from his pockets. “Ah, yes...but...” he said, pointing one hand to heaven while he juggled the brush, a ball, his key and a few photos in the other. “There's a process of elimination.”

“Elimination? From what?”

“These,” he declared, nearly dropping everything as he flashed the pictures at her. “Everyone has touched them. You, me, your mother...”

“And Elton Pope,” Rose said, catching on. “That's brilliant.”

“Well,” he tipped his head modestly as he opened the TARDIS door. “I am a Time Lord. I can do anything.” With a wave of his hand, he ushered her in ahead of him “Mind you, it will still be like looking for a needle in a...needle factory. One specific needle you understand? Lost amidst billions...or millions...at least. I think we can narrow the search to the population of Great Britain.” He placed Jackie's hairbrush and the photos on the console, returned his key to his coat, and started flipping switches. The TARDIS hummed a welcome. “Here's a challenge for you, love,” he told the awakening machinery. “Our Rose wants you to find one man among many. One particular man.” 

“You're going to lock on his DNA profile?” Rose guessed. 

“Assuming the TARDIS _can_ configure the Vortex based on genetic sequencing, yes. We've never tried this sort of thing before, but...with a bit of jiggery-pokery...” he whipped around to face Rose and said, “Hold very still.” She did, despite tingling all over when he very gently combed his spread fingers through her hair. A single golden strand clung to his skin as he lifted his hand away. He beamed, displaying the hair for her between pinched fingers. “A touch of Rose for the potion. I'll just program this in to the computer.” The TARDIS popped open a tray and he carefully coiled the hair into it. “She already has my codes from the regeneration. So...that leaves...your mother,” he plucked a brassy hair from the brush and added it to the tray, “And Mr. Elton Pope.” In went the photographs. Waggling his head, he grimaced, adding, “Also, whomever he showed these photos to...the processor...the photo shop clerks...but...we do have a cross reference selection.” 

After sliding the slot closed, he drew the monitor around in front of him. There were a number of pings and whistles and flashing colored lights. The Doctor knocked a knuckle against the thermobuffer dials, punched a few keys on the Zeiton Crystal display, took a reading and adjusted the temporal anchors. Rose braced herself for take off. The rotor ground to life. 

“Oh, what a marvelous girl, you are?” the Doctor sang, stretching forward to pat the nearest bit of naked TARDIS. When Rose grimaced over this affectionate display, he winked at her and shouted above the rotor noise. “I said so, didn't I? She likes you. Despite your fits of jealousy.”

“I'm not jealous of your time and space machine,” Rose called back. “I just think it's silly to pet her.”

The rotor stalled and Rose hastily reached out a hand to stroke the nearest column To the Doctor's smug delight, her affectionate apology seemed to do the trick. The ship stabilized and the spinning dials found focus. A second later they landed lightly in an alleyway. Rose looked over the Doctor's shoulder at the scene in the monitor screen. A strawberry blond man, who she took to be Elton Pope, cowered in the shadow of a green beast of some kind.

“Hey, it's the bloke from the meat processing plant,” Rose said. “What's that looming over him?”

“I don't know,” the Doctor said, seriously. Heading for the door, he cautioned, “Stay here, until I find out.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He should have known better than to expect her to stay put for long. She popped out of the TARDIS as soon as he announced her desire to speak with the lad. Luckily, the monster was easily dealt with and Elton Pope turned out to be rather innocent and sweet. Just another human caught up in circumstance beyond his control. Rose went from raking the boy over the coals to sympathizing with him in record time. It seemed the lad had lost both his mother and his true love. And, of course, Rose had expected her pet Time Lord to deliver a miracle. Said Time Lord had caved completely when she'd pleaded with those puppy-dog eyes of hers. He wasn't made of stone, even if Elton's girlfriend now was.

“Do you think they'll be happy? With her as a brick?” Rose asked, as they reversed course to return to the Powell Estates. “Got to be a major adjustment in a relationship.”

“It's an improvement on dead,” he said, and her tiny head tilt told him she agreed. “They'll manage I think. They love one another. Her physical form has very little to do with that.”

“People put a lot of stock in physical compatibility.”

“Not you,” he said. The glance he gave her brimmed with heated tenderness.

“You didn't make it that hard on me, though, did you?” she teased. “Wait until you go geezerly.”

“A day laborer and a paving tile,” he mused. “Not that different from you and I, at the end of the day.”

“Thank you very much,” Rose yelped, shoving his shoulder. “I like to think I'm a bit more animated than decorative stonework.”

“Who says you're the stonework?” he countered.

“Oh, well...if you mean you...that's different. You have loads in common with a paving tile,” Rose agreed, laughing. “There's a certain rigidity, to start with.”

“I'm constant,” he said with a lofty sniff. “You should count yourself lucky.” 

“Oh, I do,” she said. Catching the tip of her tongue in her teeth, she smiled at him as he circled the console.

He did his best to ignore the bubbling effervescence her flirting triggered in his veins. Locking the temporal anchors, he engaged the handbrake. The ship shuddered a little but, for once, didn't toss them around like ice in a martini shaker. “This landing business is getting astoundingly routine.” He pulled the monitor around to study it. “I wonder if she's coming down with something.”

“Do you think she'll outlive him, poor thing?” Rose wondered, her sympathetic heart touched by the thought of a lonely paving stone. 

Preoccupied with the TARDIS, the Doctor had lost the train of the conversation. “Hmmm?”

“Ursula. I would hate to think of her lingering on and on...after he's gone...”

“I think...” the Doctor said, eyes still on his readings, “They're happy.” He threw the switches that sent the TARDIS into her dormant mode. Then, he looked up and straight into her eyes. “And that's all any of us can hope for.”

To his surprise, the light in Rose's face faded and she turned away. “Nobody gets forever, I suppose,” she mumbled, hugging herself as she walked up the ramp toward the outer door. Staring after her, he shivered. In his mind's eye he could see the swirling void, and then the wolf staring at him with its fixed and golden gaze.

_Nobody gets forever. Everything must come to dust. All things. Everything dies._

He knew this. Had known it since he first looked into the Vortex as a child. He'd run away, then, and he'd kept on running. But now, it was all catching up to him. He wanted her safe, his Rose. How was he going to go on if she came to dust? His old life, traveling and fighting, exploring new worlds and meeting new people, seemed so hollow and lonely. Without Rose, he'd be a representation of a man, frozen inside, nothing more than a decorative tile on the wall.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Half-way across the parking lot, rain broke over them with no warning. One instant it was misting gently, as it had all day, the next it was bucketing down. They ran for cover, splashing through puddles. Squealing and giggling, they reached the portico, both thoroughly soaked. By the time they'd reached the apartment, Rose was shivering, but the unexpected drenching had washed away all melancholy. As the Doctor used his key to let them in, they could hardly contain their teasing pokes and tickling caresses. 

Rose shushed them both, before peeking into her mother's room. “Shhh! She's still sleeping.”

“We've only been gone five minutes,” he whispered. “She should sleep for another six hours.”

“Six hours?”

“Give or take. You're dripping on my trainers.”

“You're dripping on me,” Rose countered. 

He was. Raking a hand through his hair, he spiked it into hedgehog spines, scattering even more raindrops onto her upturned face. She found this funny and, silently chortling, collapsed against his chest. Her hoodie was sopping wet and clinging. He wrapped his arms around her, fingers pinching the wet cotton away from the small of her back, so his hand could skim up her spine. Her skin had a slick heat from rain and running. Hot, wet Rose, his personal addiction.

She was more intoxicating than a bag full of jelly babies. Determined to repeal their one unspoken and unassailable rule, no intimate contact in her mother's presence, he nuzzled his way to Rose's ear and said, “We should get you out of these clothes.”

Her breath caught, sending a sputtering sigh fluttering across his cheek, and her hands wandered, fingers threading their way through his damp layers to skin. As she dipped her head, the tip of her nose drew a line down his neck. He gulped, his grip on her tightening. 

“Into the kitchen,” she mouthed. The touch of her lips was feather light at his throat. “There's a dryer.”

He pressed against her, holding on with the desperation of a drowning man. To break the embrace, Rose collapsed to the side and rolled along the wall. This helped her sustain contact as long as possible, while moving away at the same time. They pulled apart like the segments of an orange, peeling free of the natural cling, Once they were two people again, Rose reached down to seize his hand. She tugged him in her wake as she backed toward the kitchen. 

His trainers squelched and squeaked on the tile floor. Rose reprimanded him, stretching to touch a fingertip to his lips as she said, “Shhh.” 

“I can't help my shoes squeaking.” His protest was whispered, but indignant.

“Step lightly,” she said, “Or better yet...” She leaned into his shoulder, bringing her mouth close enough to his ear to warm it as she murmured, “Take them off.” When he tried to pull back, suddenly wary of this whole plan, she fisted his duster lapel in one hand to keep him near and, sending her hungry gaze down his form, commanded, “Take the whole kit off.”

“Oh...not a good idea,” he warned. “Not here.” But his fingers had a mind of their own and were already busy tugging his shirt free of his waistband. 

“My room?” Rose suggested, stepping around him to the dryer. She divested herself of her shoes and jeans. The latter went into the machine, the former she kicked to one side.

“If I lose control...”

“You won't. You know you won't.”

“But if I do...you'll be out for days. And your mother will kill me. Regeneration simple as that.”

Rose grew serious. “I want to see you,” she said, trumping any further argument he might have been thinking of purposing. “I want you to bloom open and....” She broke off to swallow hard, moistening her lips as she squirmed free of her damp knickers. Dropping this last scrap of clothing into the dryer, she punched the button for a low setting, before facing him again. “It's so beautiful,” she told him.

“I...oh...bother!” He rolled his gaze to the ceiling and huffed. Damn. Damn. When she put it like that, what choice did he have? He absorbed his humiliating defeat for a moment. Then, glowering fiercely, held a finger so close to her nose that her eyes crossed to focus on it and, staring directly into her face, said, “Absolutely no touching.”

“Or you will turn this car around...” Rose laughed. 

“Or, I'll go back to the TARDIS,” he told her, with quelling sincerity. “And bar the ruddy door.”

“I know how to get in now, remember?”

“Not if I throw the deadbolt.”

Hurt, she sniffed and turned away. “If you feel that way about it,” she groused, fixing her attention on starting up the . “Forget I asked. I just thought...since we had a few hours, we could consummate our official status...but I guess you would rather talk about global warming or the Peligeisee Treaties or Sontar....” 

Her sulk ended in a surprised squeak as he pounced. One second he was arranging his coat over a chair back. The next second, pivoting on the ball of one foot, he struck. Yet, for all his sudden savagery, he still managed to cushion her from any injury as he pressed her forward into the dryer. His hands guided her into position, firm on her shoulders, her back, her bottom. He frisked her after capture, as Time Lords will do, checking, not for weapons but for random thoughts. Rose gasped as he shuffled erotic images to the surface of her mind. This was pure Gallifreyan foreplay, but a shocking liberty to take with a human, far more intimate than anything he was doing to her physically.

And he was doing quite a lot to her body. His hands roamed all over her, flat-palmed as they circled her nipples, claw-fingered as they scraped across her belly. His knee spread her legs into a wider stance. He was going to have her in her mother's kitchen. She whimpered, trying not to squirm. When this mood seized him squirming would only trigger his cnidocytes. And Rose didn't want to dream. 

She wanted to be wide awake for this. He meant to climax. She could tell by the way he'd come at her, restraining her. The knowing filled her with a thrumming ardor. She imagined him flowering, mantling, flooding her with heat. Reading her mind, he moaned, hitting a breathless, desperate note. Starting at the nape of her neck, he kissed every vertebrae to her tail bone. As he went lower, he shifted his grip, but continued to hold her fast against the machine. His one arm, and the weight of his body, kept her from moving, while the fingertips of his free hand glided around the plum swell of her behind. Pillowing his cheek between her shoulder blades, he gently tickled open her hidden folds. His fingers teased for a bit before they sheathed themselves in her slippery passage. She made his palm slick in seconds.

Face to the wall and sandwiched between two immovable objects, one of them quite alien, Rose knew absolutely no fear. The tiny, involuntary noises escaping her throat were inspired by the dip and slide of slender fingers. She clenched around them, trying to hold on as they pumped in and out, but they eluded her squeezing grip. Inner walls quaking, gut clenching, she remained as still as possible, panting through her need to rock her hips. Her position was perilous. He would drug her with the slightest provocation. But this was torture. Forced to her toes by pleasure, she felt her legs quiver, knees going weak. Climax barreled down on her like a runaway freight train. 

The Doctor kissed her. Nipped her. Sucked the exquisitely sensitive spot behind her left knee. His fingers massaged, stroking deep. In and out. In and...out. His tongue licked and swirled. His lips softly caressed. He'd settled to his haunches behind her, no longer restraining her at all. Rose held on, fingernails catching in the metal seams of the dryer, while the Doctor's teeth sampled her buttocks and the back of her thighs, testing the springy texture and pungent flavor of her flesh with gentle bites. The dryer's metal exterior was shockingly cold against her bare nipples but inside there was churning heat. She savored the deep vibration, letting it sink in, and it stimulated her past the point of no return, shoving her to the brink of a bone-melting release. The climax rolled over her, sending her racing toward oblivion. She jerked once and her lover disappeared. 

“No,” she wailed, breathlessly. “Oh...God...not now....”

But he was already gone, bounding away out the door and down the hall. Rose needed a shuddering moment to scrape together her composure, before she could follow him. In the hall, she found he'd left her a trail of discarded garments. It lead straight to her bedroom. She arrived there, wet and weak in the knees, clutching his tie, shirt and suit jacket. 

He was just unzipping his trousers.   
He glanced up and, flashing an impudent grin, caroled, “Hello!”

Rose would have called him something nasty, if he hadn't been shimmering. All along his chest and back, the mantle of arousal bristled. The moving tapestry of desire never failed to mesmerize her. And for so long, she'd been blind to it. In the beginning, everything had happened so fast and this display had been hidden under layers of clothing. The Doctor's arousal had manifested for her as a hundred needle sharp darts firing neurotoxins into her skin. Her earliest experiences with this mantling phenomenon had been brief shots of pain, followed by the drugged haze of his aphrodisiac. But now, she could see all of his sexual arousal signs. He'd learned to trust her, and himself. And she'd learned to see him as he was--alien, but extraordinarily beautiful in full mating display. 

He was like an anemone, her Doctor. Most like that, she supposed, with his venomous darts bristling. Stray ions, dust particles in the air, even her pheromones, acted like ocean currents might on the tiny hair-like projections. In the presence of his true companion, the Doctor's cnidocytes danced. They stirred and swayed, creating intricate and beautiful patterns. The specialized cells she'd once thought of as a random collection of goosebumps or prickly little harpoons, Rose now thought of as enticing. This display was for her alone, his life mate. If she blew on his skin, or even thought about touching him, he responded. His skin rippled and, as he'd showed her via the TARDIS photo lab, also emitted colors and other high spectrum energies. He let her hear the music via their telepathic link. 

And then there was his sex. 

Her gaze was inexorably drawn to it as he stepped free of his trousers. It had blooming open a bit and the sight set Rose's mouth watering. She licked her lips, slowly, seductively; thrilled when his display changed. The pleasure he could give her in full flower surpassed even the wonders of their mental union. But, she knew better than to rush this. She approached him cautiously. He hadn't been exaggerating about how dangerous this was. His kind mated violently. Gallifreyan males were a stealthy lot. After enticing a partner in with an arousal display, they were programmed to tackle her, striking without warning. A Gallifreyan female, injected with neurotoxin was still strong enough to respond or recoil, depending on her level of psychic compatibility with her would-be mate. 

But, naked and telepathically defenseless, a human female stood no chance. If the Doctor hit her with even a fraction of the toxic load he would use on one of his own kind, Rose would be comatose for a week. Mutual physical pleasure depended on the dance, on Rose being his true companion. She needed to commune with him psychically, let him know she was prepared to accept him. And she could do that now. The connection was strong enough, she was strong enough. Which meant he was free to display for her, free to experience his full sexuality. He held a hand up, palm out, facing her and she mirrored him. They touched at the fingertips, then at the palm, still standing two arm's lengths apart. 

His eyes glittered like cut crystal as they focused on hers. She stroked him with her mind, drawing imaginary fingers along his shoulders, and down across his chest. The skin there swirled and the Doctor sent a resonating hum into her head. He continued to sing, even as he hissed his next breath through clenched teeth. Rose hummed, too, and watched him fight off the urge to put her down. 

His mouth opened and closed, but he had no words for what he wanted. He flashed her the impression of it and her nipples hardened even more, throbbing in anticipation. Catching and holding his gaze, she very slowly shifted her fingers, sliding them against, and then inbetween his. When she tightened her grip, he broke eye contact, head tipping back as he groaned. Rose glanced down and saw he was ready for her. She tugged him forward as she sank onto the end of the bed. 

_You're so beautiful._ she told him again, mind to mind. “Perfect,” she said, softly popping her p and t. Her exhalation curled around his orchid-like member, stimulating it to full bloom. 

It reached for her lips, depositing a feather-light kiss with its delicate petals. Sighing, she closed her eyes and opened her mouth, surrounding her Doctor in the moist heat he craved. She let him caress and explore. He touched her ear, caressed her throat, fluttered over her eyelids. When the thousands of little tongues started to vibrate, the singing in her head became a chorus, urging her to eased back on the bed. She settled into a completely receptive position, knees up, heels braced wide as she relaxed onto her bent elbows. His first pass over her belly went down into the slick valley between her legs and a surge of bliss nearly stopped her heart. She gasped as it slammed into her ribcage and cried out before she could stop herself. A moment later she thought she heard an answering call from just outside her room door.

Under any other circumstance Rose would have investigated such a noise. But her current state of psychic overload left her very little synaptic leeway to harbor suspicions. Her brain was busy cataloging a deluge of alien sensations. Lit up inside, blood and bone on fire, she could only pray for reference points on most of the incoming data. Delicious tremors zigzagged through her. She could see the radio waves and microwaves in the air around her. Sound had texture. That was him, she knew, his senses overlapping hers. 

Rose had never used drugs but she imagined tripping on something wildly hallucinogenic must feel this way. She could taste the Doctor's thoughts. Her nervous system had red-lined at the outer limits of pleasure, one chemical reaction short of a meltdown. 

And then, the Doctor kissed her. 

It was a sweet and simple kiss, but touch helped her orient on him, on what he was doing above her. His mouth was wondrously compliant, adapting to her purely human need for a physical connection. Lips, soft on hers, brought an awareness of her body back. Tender kisses, coming one after another, awakened her to a shivering need to arch under him, press into him. Oh, she wanted to fuck him, now. She wanted a hard, slick ride and knew he wanted one, too. A sweet pang coiled around her heart. Her abdominal muscles tensed taut enough to quiver. And it became crystal clear that no matter how alien, how cerebral, this seemed, it was sex. They both panted and shuddered and Rose came.

Mind-to-mind, he absorbed her climax, making it his. But something was blocking him from his own release. Rose pressed for the reason and caught a glimpse of a swirling void, but he shunted the image away from her. She scraped her nails down his spine, opened her mind to him and encouraged him to give in to the avalanche of sensations bombarding him. She we wanted him to come for her, chanted for it in his head: _Go on. Go on. Jump. Fall. Love, mine, let me catch you._

With a mindless growl, he rose to his knees above her. His fingers locked around her wrists and he dragged her hands up over her head. Then, he shifted his legs, straddling her hips. The straddling no longer seemed wrong to her, it was so very right. Everything they did together felt perfectly natural to her. He wanted to hold onto her, needed that. They caught and kept a rhythm, rocking the bed until its springs squeaked. She pushed him to climax, shoving him into the bright sun at the center of her mind. When he came, when the white light of his soul rocketed through her, Rose rode with him all the way down into the black. They slumped into one another, curling their bodies into a yin and yang circle. 

Lying content in the Doctor's arms, Rose waited for her heart rate to slow. She drifted towards sleep, listening to the repetitive sound of the Doctor's breathing, happy he'd found rest. In the distance, she could hear traffic racing along the highway. Nearby, there were muted voices, but it was still too quiet. It took her a moment to realize what was missing. There was no satisfied hum from the walls of her room, no TARDIS to tuck reality in around them and bid them sweet dreams.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Are you sure you'll be alright while I'm gone?” Rose murmured, cutting her glance toward the living room, where her mother sat watching _Coronation Street._ “My mum's still acting...funny. No bickering. No yelling. I don't want to leave her alone.”

“She won't be alone, will she? I'm here. And Sarah Jane is expecting you.”

“You could go,” Rose suggested, half-heartedly. “Give her my regards.”

Her marked lack of enthusiasm for this plan, told him he had chosen the right bait to remove her from the house. “Oh, I don't think I could.” He swept a hand across his nape, peering up at her, as he said, “All those...memories.”

Rose sighed, knowing he was right. She wasn't jealous of Sarah Jane anymore. They'd become fast friends. But it wouldn't be fair to thank the poor woman for her help by reminding her of the past. She'd finally given up on waiting and had started rebuilding her life. A visit from the Doctor was the last thing she needed now. Rose's worried frown showed the extent of her internal conflict. She didn't want to upset her new friend, but she wasn't sure she should leave her mother with the Doctor.

“You won't wander off?”

He shot her an exasperated glare. “I'm not a toddler,” he said, testily. “I can get by for a few hours without adult supervision.”

“My Mrs. Phathiakulkwedia senses are tingling,” Rose muttered, narrowing her eyes at him. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

“By sending you to see Sarah Jane?” he asked, hitting a falsetto note, which nearly confirmed her suspicions. “She called you, didn't she? I'm only suggesting it would do you good to see the old girl. Swap stories, imbibe a spot of tea...”

“It's just not like you to be so...considerate.”

He could sense the wheels turning in her head. But her attention drifted again to her mother and, as it did, he made a conscious effort to influence her subconsciously. “We'll be fine,” he said, softly pressing on her mind. “As long as there are no alien invasions or half-off sales at Primark we'll stay right here, making toast and watching telly. You just toddle off to your girl's day out.”

Rose nodded, abruptly reaching her decision. “Don't try to fix the toaster,” she said, stepping forward and going up on tiptoes to kiss him. “The top settings are supposed to burn the toast.”

“And I imagine it was purposely engineered to make the upper left quadrant of a slice dark brown whilst leaving the lower half completely untoasted?”

“Yes, that's how we humans like our toast,” Rose told him, flatly. 

“You rotate your bread, one quarter turn,” he accused, following her from the room. “You pop it up, turn it forty-five degrees and restart the toaster. I've seen you. Do you have any idea how many creative hours are being lost to the human race if everyone does that? Art, invention, peace initiatives, all of that bountiful...beautiful energy...simply...squandered,” he sputtered in exasperation, “Spent...turning bread.”

“I don't want to come back here to find the fire department on the door step and the place full of smoke again,” Rose warned, lifting her jacket from the back of a sofa and draping it over her arm. He walked with her as she headed for the front hall. “The top settings are for frozen pastries and the like. Nobody uses them for toast.”

“Danish?” he mused, glancing back through the kitchen door toward the refrigerator. 

Rose chuckled, shaking her head. “Oh, I don't know why I bother. Just...keep the fire extinguisher handy. And open a window if mum starts coughing. She doesn't have respiratory by-pass.”

The Doctor shooed her toward the exit and she went, kissing her mother goodbye on her way to the door. 

As soon as he was certain Rose had gone, the Doctor turned his attention to Jackie. She'd watched her daughter leave. Now she looked at him, clicked off the television and rose from her chair. “We need to talk,” she said. 

“I think we do,” he agreed. “Shall I make us some tea?”

“No, you bloody well can't make me tea,” Jackie snapped, striding across the room to confront him. “You drugged me,” she accused, shrilly. “In my own house. I should call the police, have you turned out into the street. And it would serve you right if I never let Rose see you again. Probably be the best thing for her...getting rid of you.”

The Doctor tensed, his jaw clenching. He wasn't a very nice man. And he wondered if Jackie had any idea how simple it would make things for him, if she tried to come between him and her daughter. Rose would never tolerate open interference. He thought about explaining this to Jackie, but didn't want her to feel any more threatened than she already did. Of course, he didn't want have this conversation at all. But if he had to have it, he'd much rather have it without Rose caught in the middle. Sighing, he gestured Jackie back toward her chair as he stepped around her and went to the sofa.

“You were there, last night, at her bedroom door,” he said, matter-of-fact, as he sat down. He was resigned to explaining what he'd rather not ever discuss. “What did you see?” 

“You knew?” Jackie gasped. She'd just settled but this made her rise from the chair again like a startled pheasent. He thought she might slap him. “You knew I was there and...you...?”

“I'm...let's say, I was grateful you didn't rush in and start screaming.”

“I couldn't. I couldn't even move. You were...you just..." Deflating, she sank back into her seat. "Seeing Rose like that. It was...horrible.”

He nodded slightly, acknowledging her disgust. But when he spoke, his voice had a hard edge to it. “Naturally, we don't think of it like that.”

“You and Rose?” Jackie asked, plaintively, hoping he would apply the pronoun to some other “we.”

“Yes, Rose and I, “ he concurred, softly, “We don't think of our union as...horrible.”

Jackie didn't allow herself time to digest his wording. Now that the floodgates had been opened, she wanted to purge herself of every conflicted emotion. “I didn't mean to look,” she blurted. “I didn't even know...it was so different from...anything else. And I was dizzy and sick. Lord knows, I'm not one of those prying mothers, who creep about spying on their children. I've always trusted Rose. I just...woke up from this terrible dream. There was this hole...a great gaping hole in the world...and she was falling toward it.” Her gaze had focused inward. She hugged herself, friction burning heat into her upper arms by rubbing them briskly. “And I heard her screaming.”

The Doctor shifted uneasily. Sitting on the very edge of the sofa cushions, he spoke sharply to Jackie. The whites of his eyes gleamed all around the irises as his brows rose. “A hole? You dreamed about a hole in the world?”

“Tha's what it looked like,” Jackie told him, obviously reading far less significance into her dream than he did. Knowing he couldn't press her now, he decided to ask her more about it later. “I woke up shivering and sick, and then, I thought I heard her cry out. So, I went to her bedroom. I was that dizzy, I had to hold onto the wall.”

“You shouldn't have been out of bed,” he told her. “You Tyler women amaze me.”

“I only wanted to check, to make sure she was okay. And I called at the door...but she didn't answer me.”

“We were...” he searched for the right way to put it and settled on, “busy.”

Jackie didn't seem to care what term he used. All of her attention had turned to the memory of he and Rose together, her daughter and an alien. 

“I know what you think of me,” Jackie said, “But I'm not stupid. My Rose is a healthy young woman. Bound to get up to things with a man she fancies. I figured the two of you were...intimate. She used to spend time with Mickey, and that Jimmy Stone...and I never said a word, except to remind her about protection. But this...? I never imagined it would be like that between you. It's unnatural. Not...human.”

“Well...I'm not human," he pointed out in his most reasonable drawl.

“But my Rose is! How could she do that with you?” Sweeping her gaze over him, she hit a strident note as she said, “You look just like us.”

“Superficially,” he said, “but, just under my skin I'm a different species entirely.”

“Your skin,” Jackie hissed, shuddering over the memory. “It crawls.”

“Bristles,” he corrected, clinically. “And you're right. I'm not like you. I'm not even a primate. What Rose and I do is...fundamentally,” he nodded a few times to show he understood her position, “unnatural. For both of us.”

“Then...why?”

“We..." He sighed. "How do I put this? We enjoy one another.”

“What about...?” Jackie began, before pausing to moisten her lips and swallow. The Doctor almost smiled at this reticence. It was so unlike her. “Can you...the pair of you...? Can Rose get, have...children? Your children, I mean? Doing what you do together? Is it like that? Like sex?”

“Yes, it's like sex. Well," he shrugged, "it is.”

“And...would they be...normal? Normal babies? Or would they be...mules?”

“Mules?” he exclaimed, struggling not to sneer. Her reasoning defied him. He scratched his ear and scowled, mouth misshapen. “Why would they be like...? Oh, oh...infertile, you mean...Ah, yes, clever that...they _would_ be interspecific hybrids...like, as you say, mule. Or Tigons or ligers...and, they are usually sterile...well, males are. Only not in this case. It's rather hard to explain.” 

His head bobbed and his mouth moved silently, chewing over the problem as he hemmed and hawed. Finally, figuring she deserved to know, he launched into a full explanation. “Fertility is based on chromosomal alignment at meiosis. Horses and donkeys have different numbers of chromosomes. So, they don't line up properly. But my species is polymorphic and, also, polyploidic. The question of offspring would be more analogous to...crossbreeding plants. Say, I was a hydrangea and Rose was a...rose. Our offspring would be something else entirely. And definitely able to breed true to their own type. Or...I say, definitely...probably...most likely. Actually, I'm not sure that's been tested. But my kind interbred with yours in the distant past. And the children passed for human, or,” he said, lingering on the conjunction because he wanted to be completely honest about this, “Demigods. Quite a few lived to breeding age...married and such. My DNA sequencing remains constant in this body once I'm out of my regenerative cycle...but my reproductive cells adapt to...” 

Jackie, who had been staring at him in wide-eyed dismay for several seconds, suddenly lost all patience. “Oh, you can shut up,” she exclaimed. “Godsakes, how does she put up with you rambling on like that for days and days?”

“Right, then,” he said, saluting. “Shutting it. Summing up: Rose could get pregnant. But she won't until she's ready. I'll see to that.”

“And when she's ready, what then?” Jackie asked. “And don't go on and on about it, this time. Just answer me this, Doctor. What about when she's ready to settle down? When she's too old or too sick to keep up with you? I've seen how the pair of you live, laughing at monsters, taking mad risks. Mickey's gone and he's never coming back. How do I know you won't leave Rose and her children on some alien world? You could change your face, disappear.”

“I would never leave her.” There was a ferocity behind his measured reassurance, but Jackie dismissed it without a second thought.

“Even if I believe that,” she said, with a careless waft of her hand, “It's not safe, traveling with you.”

He had nothing to say to this. Rose had lost a child already because of him. She'd, also, lost her face and nearly died several times over. He did live a reckless life. And he had work to do that only he could do. 

“Do you love her? Do you love my daughter?”

The Doctor winced. Why did humans always ask this question? He was never sure how to answer it. Oh, he knew what Jackie wanted him to say. Knew what she meant, even. She meant, will you protect Rose and keep her safe? Will you promise me she'll never be hurt? But the word love was so inadequate for what he and Rose shared. He loved the Muppets and ice cream and traveling. He'd loved many people in his 900 years of life, each of his wives, his children and grandchildren, Borusa, Sarah Jane, Romana, Tegan, and, to some extent, every other traveling companion he'd ever had. Love, like lust, was an effervescent, transient pleasure. It could move mountains, and then die and fade away. When you examined it closely, love had no real substance to it. Sparked by a series of chemical reactions in the brain and body, love was, at the heart of it all, a neurological impulse. 

But there was nothing impulsive in his attachment to Rose. It was true that most of the time, he loved her completely and unreservedly, with a breathless giddiness. But to label true union 'love' was like naming a child's drawing of a star 'the sun.' To say he loved Rose would be like saying he loved his right arm or his left heart or all six of his kidneys. Of course, he did love these parts of himself, when he thought about them in those terms. If a madman with an ax (or a Sycorax with a sword) were to chop off his arm (or his hand), it would be detached from him, but no less a part of him. He would never get over losing it. Nor would it get over losing him. 

It didn't matter if he could go on existing without his hand or a heart. A new hand had taken the place of his old one. But, the old one was still his hand. If pressed to find it, even now, he could do so. He knew, for example, that at this very moment it was pickling in a jar in Cardiff. Why Cardiff, he wondered? Before dismissing the thought. 

If someone asked, “Do you love your right hand?” What would he say? 

_It's my hand!_

He decided to say much the same to Jackie. “She's my...Rose,” he said. 

“But do you love her?” Jackie pressed, and he knew any attempt at poetic license would go over her head. “Really? Truly?”

“Yes,” he said, simply, consigning his oaths and ranking as a Time Lord to perdition with a single word. No regrets, he thought, as Jackie went on speaking.

“As much as I do? Enough to let go? Enough to do the right thing, like you did before? You sent her home once. And that's the only reason I have to trust you.”

“I've promised Rose,” he said, “that she can stay with me as long as she likes. You're asking me if I would send her away? No! You have no idea what that would do to her.”

“Yes, I do,” Jackie said. “Why do you think I've remained quiet all this time?”

“Quiet?” he scoffed.

“I've let you have the run of this house. I've played my part,” she said, offended by his open disdain. “You won't hear anyone say different. Everyone thinks I'm the happy mother-in-law.” He lifted a curious brow at this, wondering if she suspected how apt the term was. “But I have to know...this one thing. If there ever comes a time when you can't protect her, are you strong enough to let her go?”

Eyes steady on hers, he rose from the sofa, a sure signal this conversation was at an end.

“I want her beside me, always," he said. "But I will never put my happiness ahead of her safety,” he shook his head as he went on, “I'm sorry. That's all I can promise you. Now, if I can't interest you in tea, how about some toast?”

TO BE CONTINUED


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so...we arrive at Doomsday. Not the worst moment in Doctor/Rose history, but the worse one that had aired relative to this fic. We shall have to endure it. Hold on everyone.

The world flickered before him, like a celluloid film shown a hundred times too often. He'd seen this reel before, the final battle sequence. It tended to stick and burn on the projector light. Static buzzed in his head. But through the white noise, he could hear the indistinct drone of overlapping voices. His own words came to him quite clearly, the memory of them tightly tuned to a frequency.

“And when you go back to the stars and tell others of this planet, when you tell them of its riches, its people, its potential...when you talk of the Earth, then make sure that you tell them this: It is defended!”

Another voice, the most beloved one, also came back to him in sharp detail, “Doctor, they've got guns.” But the speakers in his memory kept overlapping the here and now.

_They've got guns, Doctor. Pulse particle guns trained on the Capital._

“And I don't. Which makes me the better person, don't you think? They can shoot me dead, but the moral high ground is mine.”

The white room started to fade around him, as the sound of weapons fire and the screams of the dying began overwhelming his reason. He grew numb and even his own voice became hazy in memory. _I won't be a party to this. I will not...cannot pull that trigger. Do you have any idea what such a weapon would do?_

_\--We don't have the luxury of taking the moral high ground, Doctor. It's time for you to get your hands dirty._

_\--Is that where we are, Brellia? Is this the high ground? Look at my hands, old friend. Look at them! My hands may never be clean again._

“She was in the room with that sphere,” Jackie Tyler said, trying to be hopeful. “What's happened to Rose?”

_She was on board that ship. Her family. My family. Every last surviving member. Tell me they made it through the blockade. Damn it man, tell me what's happened to Susan?_

“I'll find her. I brought you here,” he grated out the promises through clenched teeth, “I'll get you both out, you and your daughter. Jackie, look at me.”

_We'll stop them at Arcadia. You have my word. I promise you, the plan will work. The line will hold._

“Rose said about the Daleks, she was terrified of them. What have they done to her, Doctor? Is she dead?”

Through the crackle of static the Master's voice came to him...so many mixed feelings about that. _Dead!_ (static) _They're all..._ (static) _Fuck...Doctor, pick up the damned Com. We can't hold them off much longer. We've lost Brellia and Kquieroon...the defense grid is failing._

 _\--Here..._ (deafening blasts) _I'm...we've got...outside the wall_ (He could barely hear himself speaking...only every third or fourth word...as if the radio static was all in his head. He was bleeding. There was quite a lot of blood and a dizzy sickness...he couldn’t shake it and retched between reports.) _...Ace?_

Miraculously the connection cleared as the guns fell silent. _\--Ace? Gone! Your precious pet is gone. The right flank is bloody well gone. The Cruciform is all that's still standing. They've herded us in here to die. Trapped us like stupid cattle._

Another voice cut in through the static _\--Heavy fire..._ (static) _The Eye? The_ (static) _Inside the Cruciform...defenses?_

The Master spoke again, loud and clear. _\--Pulverized, Doctor, asteroids and dust. There's nothing left. You have to hold them at Arcadia._ (a furious storm of static and then nothing…for too long…nothing) _...everything I ever said about you. I'll repent every sin, I swear. Just promise me. Promise me, you will hold them at Arcadia._

“What's upgrading mean?” Jackie sounded as plaintive as a child begging for forgiveness, promising to be good. “Stop, them. I don't want to go, Doctor. No, NO! Doctor...? You promised me. You gave me your word.” 

The bleat of the vanquished, bargaining for their lives, their infantile squeaking making no impression on deaf reality, he'd heard that pleading note in his own voice. He remembered it all too well.

_Get out. All of you. Romana? Romana, can you hear me? Inquisitor? Zagrocilia? Master? Anyone? Please...please, pick up! You can't be gone. It can't all be gone. Romana? If you can hear me, get out. Get out, now! Arcadia has fallen. Repeat, Arcadia has fallen. They're coming through._

Two lifetimes and a hundred years later, he could still hear the static bursts as the TARDIS tried to patch him through to a capital city already in flames. He could still smell the blood, brains and spent bowels of the fallen. He could still taste the bitter surge of icy bile rising into his throat as TARDIS after TARDIS vanished from the battle grids before him. The rising fear of his own ship filled his mind as they rose over Arcadia. Her keening wail of despair galvanized him into action as more and more of his people died and were downloaded to the Matrix. 

The thought of the Matrix focused his resolve. All of that knowledge, all of that power - in the hands of the Daleks? It was unthinkable. They would use the Matrix and the Eye of Harmony to breach the dimensional walls: universe after universe would fall, until there was no life left...anywhere. He couldn't let that happen. Aware of his injuries only in so far as they slowed him, he set to work. He moved like a man neck deep in treacle. 

His numb fingers fumbled over buttons and dials. The control room floor dipped and bucked under him as he started the final countdown. He clung to the console and threw the switch to backup the Matrix, the source of all Time Lord Wisdom, copying it to the TARDIS processing core. Her systems red-lined and began overheating. Panels blew off the walls. Fluid leaked from every gasket.

The main lights went out and the emergency ones dimmed. The floor pitched to the right, sending him crashing into what remained of the guard railing. There was more blood now. A slab of spinning debris had slammed into his forehead, gashing open his brow. His knees buckled and his hand, giving up its grip on anchoring stability, went to his temple. The wildly rotating ship tossed him about like an ice cube dropped into a cup. He felt his collarbone break. There would be no respite from the dizzying nausea this time. As he crashed into the time rotor, he held on and clawed his way to the Helmut regulator. His bloodied fingers punched in a gravity sequence. 

To his complete amazement, the TARDIS settled into a relatively upright flight pattern. Praising her profusely, he tried to coax a bit more speed from her. The monitor showed the oncoming Dalek ships. The TARDIS coughed and sputtered, her engines smoking. He urged her to try harder, mentally holding her hand. A new peal of warning bells sounded. The circle of weapons fire was closing in on them. There was nothing he could do to save himself, or anyone else. 

There was no one left to save. Nothing left but his duty to carry out the last order President Romana had given him—“If we fail.... If we fall...destroy the Eye of Harmony, release the holy power of the Vortex and burn Gallifrey out of the sky, not just here and now but throughout time. You must do this Doctor. If Gallifrey falls.” Every one of his people would die his entire civilization. But it had to be done. Not one Dalek could survive. The cleansing fire was the only way to be sure.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There was a gulf. A gaping hole. A bottomless abyss, opening into the void between realities. A burning rift in time and space. It was mirrored in his mind and soul. He woke up to it each morning, had stared into it endlessly. It didn’t matter if the nothingness reflected blue eyes or brown. The soulless reflection claimed everything. His planet. His past. His people. Everyone he’d ever loved or hated or never heard of or hoped to meet one day. Every photograph fell away, every scrap of paper, every dirty dish. Until there was only the wind remaining, only the sound of things departed. Love and hate and hope rushed toward the rift, slipping by him, tumbling past him into nothingness. He screamed his denial. Screamed until his head ached and his throat bled but there was no one left to hear him. No one left. 

_“The sphere came through here,” Yvonne said, showing him the wall that had haunted him for over a year. “A hole in the world”_

_“I just...woke up from this terrible dream,” Jackie mused. “There was this hole...a great gaping hole in the world...and she was falling toward it.”_

_“So you find the breech,” he said, hoping Yvonne caught the pitch to his voice and appreciated his disappointment in her. “Probe it. The Sphere comes through. Bam! It leaves a hole in the fabric of reality. And that hole? Do you think, should we leave it alone, should we back off, should we play it safe. Nah! You think...let's make it bigger!”_

“You are proof,” the Cyberleader grated. 

It took a Herculean effort but the Doctor turned from his view of the beleaguered city far below, and brought his attention to bear on the metallic horror beside him. 

“Of what?” he asked, not really caring what it meant.

“That emotions destroy you,” it replied.

He wouldn't have thought it could hurt him, but this simple statement pierced his chest like the point of a javelin. He was so lost even this emotionless thing could see it. Tears blurred his vision for a moment, as he thought of all the friends he'd watched fall. He thought of Rose in the sphere room with the Daleks. Terrified, her mother had said. Even if she survived, somehow, even if he managed to save her, he'd lost her mother. How could he ever face her again knowing he'd let her mother die? Rose’s world would fall to the Daleks. And her mother would become a Cyberman just as she’d done in the alternative world. Jackie Tyler had been his responsibility and once again she'd been taken from Rose and converted. 

To his surprise he found himself agreeing with the Cyberleader’s assessment of his weakness. “Yeah, I am.” 

As he confessed, a twitch in the fabric of reality drew his eye. He'd been looking around corners all day, staring into the oncoming storm, hoping to find a way out, a way to keep this world and his Rose safe. At first he didn’t understand what he was seeing. There was a shimmer that had nothing to do with the destruction or salvation of this world. It took startling shape. Soldiers. There were soldiers coming. 

“Mind you, I quite like hope,” the Doctor said, sitting up a little straighter. “Hope's a good emotion. And here it comes.”

Relief troops arrived - a whole squadron of them. As soon as he saw they were armed, the Doctor dived to the side, taking shelter from any friendly fire behind a chair. Belatedly, he realized the desk would have offered more cover. He was compensated for his dangerous exposure with a very good a view of the action. He took perverse joy in watching the Cyberleader's head explode. It wouldn't slow the metal army down one jot, but it would take them a few moments to recruit the next leader. He could use a few moments to regroup. 

“Doctor? Good to see you again.”

“Jake?” He couldn't believe it. 

And he wasn't given time to process the ramifications of a rescue effort mounted from a parallel world. Before he could explain about the dangers of hopping from one Earth to the next, Jake hijacked him, announcing upon arrival, “Parallel Earth, Parallel Torchwood.”

Parallel Pete Tyler. And suddenly, the Doctor had the first glimmerings of an idea. 

“You're not in charge here,” Pete told him. “This is our world, not yours. And you're going to listen, for once.”

Of all the bloody cheek, the Doctor thought. Rose was in danger. Jackie could be dead or dying at any moment and this…this vitamin salesman wanted to dither on about ancient history. The Doctor stuffed his hands in his pockets and, while Jake and Pete told him all about their fight against the Cyber-menace, he walked to the wall that mirrored the one in his world. He pressed his ear to it, just where the breech had occurred, and listened to the void. It didn't sound even remotely like the ocean. But across it, on the other shore, he could sense Rose in the orb room. 

His Rose was still alive and fighting. Pride surged through him and he knew he could do no less. He had to keep fighting, too. Turning his back on his desire to rip through to her with his bare hands, he put on his attentive face, crossed his arms and leaned into the wall to hear these alternative players out.

It seemed over three years had passed, here, while less than two had gone by on his Earth. So the worlds intersected at diverse points on their respective time streams. His lower lip protruded a little as he digested this. It could prove useful. It meant the bridge across the void was unstable, something AlternaPete must be made to realize. The Doctor gave him an assessing look. The man wasn't stupid. Despite what Jackie had led him to believe, it appeared Rose came by her perceptive nature genetically after all.

The three men walked together to the window and looked out on a world at peace, a world with no Cybermen and no Daleks. “They're calling this the Golden Age,” Pete said. “But it's all a lie.”

Of course it was a lie. Sweet motherly Harriet Jones was their President. Harriet Jones, who he had admired almost as much as Queen Victoria, had turned out to be cut from the same cloth. Rassilon spare him from ruthless women rulers, they were more cold-blooded than the Zygons. 

“I've been trying to tell you travel between parallel worlds is impossible,” he said with as much force as he could muster. He pointed dramatically toward the window. “Every time you jump from one reality to another you rip a hole in the universe. This planet is starting to boil. Keep going and both worlds will fall into the void.”

“But you can stop it,” Pete Tyler wheedled, sounding very like his daughter. “The famous Doctor, you can seal the breach?”

“Leaving five million Cybermen stranded on my Earth.” _And no thank you._

“That's your problem,” Pete said, his dismissive attitude reminding the Doctor forcefully of Jackie's pragmatism. There was certainly a Tyler family resemblance at work. “I'm protecting this world, and this world only.”

Instead of asking how he expected to win an argument using such self-serving logic, the Doctor grinned. Pete and Jackie Tyler deserved one another. They were a good match. And that gave him an idea, the beginnings of a plan. He raked his gaze over the man as he said, “Pete Tyler, I knew you when you were dead.” Oh, yes, there was definitely something about the Tyler family he found compelling. Perhaps it was their belief in him, coupled with their unshakable grasp on their own reality. They had no hesitation at all in asking him to do the impossible.

“Doctor, help us,” Pete requested.

“What? Close the breech? Stop the Cybermen? Defeat the Daleks?” The timbre of his voice climbed on each consecutive question. “Do you believe I can do that?”

“Yes,” Pete said, simply.

“Maybe that's all I need,” the Doctor mused. He recalled how Rose had saved him at the lowest point in his life. How his belief in her had allowed them both to escape the sanctuary base. Maybe all he needed was that Tyler family faith to bolster his resolve. He certainly didn't want to let them down. And his mind was churning with new ideas, now. Convinced, he beamed and said, “Off we go, then.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Inspiration whipped the Doctor into furious action as soon as they returned to his proper reality. Shaking off the pull of the void, he leaped for the nearest desk phone and dialed Jackie's mobile. To his immense relief, she answered. He spoke across her cry for help, gently urging her to focus. As soon as he had her direction, he rang off and turned to Pete. 

“She's not my wife,” Pete said, focusing like mad on his own reality.

“I was at the wedding,” the Doctor told him. “You got her name wrong.” Bounding over to Jake, he snatched away the lad's weapon. “Now then, Jakie-boy, if I can open up the bonding chamber on this thing, it can work on polycarbide.”

Jake, bless him, asked all the right questions and they were soon on top of a plan to rescue Rose. The Doctor entertained no debate over Rose's rescue taking priority. First things first, he declared, before any planet saving or breech closing occurred, they would reunite the team. Mickey was down there, too, he reminded the alternative world soldiers. Surely, they meant to save Mickey? As he posed this question, the sputtering Pete subsided into silence. 

Having shamelessly manipulated everyone onto his side, the Doctor sent them scurrying off on tasks. 

“You, what’s your name?”

“Alonzo, sir, Alonzo Rodriguez.”

“Is it? Well, Alonzo, I'll need a few things for my next miracle, hope you don't mind stopping by the warehouses to pick up some supplies.” Snatching a post-it note from one of the nearest desktop organizers, he started scrawling a list. “Oh, and I'll need a sheet of A-4, blank, and some sort of pointer or baton or...stick.” When nobody stirred, he glanced up, lifting both brows at Pete. Gesturing one handed, the Doctor shooed him away. “Now! Go on. Paper. Stick.”

By the dark look on Pete's face, he wasn't used to being sent on errands. Tough, the Doctor thought, because this is my world and I mean to save it. All he needed was a little cooperation from the Cybermen. And the Daleks. And the void. And Rose and her mother. Okay, a bit of luck wouldn't hurt either. 

He wondered how Rose was faring a few floors down. Reaching out with his mind, he could sense her fear and her anger. He longed to soothe her. But he couldn't afford to keep the connection open, any minute now the Daleks could discover their psychic link. He had no idea why they were keeping her alive but he would wager it had something to do with their Genesis Arc. And knowing how important Rose was to him wouldn’t do anything good for her lifespan. Rose had lots of unique qualities. She'd traveled in time and bonded with a Time Lord. Those two experiences had left her inundated with miscellaneous chemicals and radiant particles. She had also crossed the void, as had Mickey. But Rassilon help them all if the Daleks discovered just how unique Rose really was. He didn’t want to think about that power inside her breaking loose.

Coincidentally, he arrived to rescue her just as she was telling the Daleks all about it. Thanks to a bit of forward planning, he crouched, undetected, outside the Orb Room doors and patched into the local security cameras. He was amazed by the way every Dalek eyestalk had fixated on Rose. She held the group spellbound with her tale of falling Empires. As the Doctor worked on opening the door, he listened to her enthralling them.

“Don't you want to know what happened?” He heard her ask.

The Dalek stayed on topic, “Place your hand...”

“What happened to the Emperor,” Rose clarified.

“The Emperor survived?” Was that a note of hope in the metallic voice?

“Until he met me,” Rose said, silkily. “Cause if these are going to be my last words, then you're going to listen. I met the Emperor and I took the Time Vortex and I poured it into his head and turned him into dust.” The Doctor shivered, hearing a Wagnerian chorus in his own head as he sonically navigated his way through the final door lock. She was telling them the secret to ruling creation. All they needed was her. 

“Do you get that,” she was saying as the door swished open. “God of all the Daleks.” She was nose to eye-stalk with the thing. “And I destroyed him. HA!” She crowed, and just for a second, the Doctor wondered if she really could have been as vengeful in her manipulation of the Vortex as any Time Lord.

Then, the Black Dalek snapped, “You will be exterminated.” And he decided it was past time to enter the fray. 

“Now, hold on. Wait a minute.”

Daleks were physically incapable of starting in surprise, but these four gave a good approximation of it. The other Daleks, the ones who should have been on watch but had, instead, been distracted by Rose, suddenly went into alarm mode. “Alert! Alert!”

“You are the Doctor!”

Tell me something I don't know, he thought, sauntering in hands in pockets. He cast a vacantly sweet smile around the room, ending on his Rose. She beamed back at him, bouncing for joy, even though he'd done nothing to inspire it as yet. Chances were quite good they'd all be dead in a second.

“Sensors report he is unarmed,” one of the Daleks intoned.

“That's me, always,” he said. 

“Then, you are powerless,” the black Dalek declared.

“Not me, never,” he told it, before whipping off his 3-D glasses and turning solicitously to greet his wife. “How are you?” he asked, putting as much adoration as he dared into the greeting. 

Rose easily picked up on his mental signals. Dialing back her enthusiasm, she said, “Oh, same old. You know.”

What a helpmate she was, distracting the enemy and keeping a cool head when he came to rescue her. A lesser woman might have fainted or screamed or given in to hysterics, but not his Rose. Those same sensors that had just frisked him would have picked him up outside the door if she hadn't been occupying the troops with delightful bedtime stories. Of course, they would also pick up Jake's men circling closer, if he didn't keep them off guard. Time for his own floor show. 

“Good,” he peeped, moving on before he gave in to his need for a hug. “And Mickity-Mick-Mickey, nice to see ya!”

Mickey returned his fist-to-fist greeting saying, “And you, boss.”

Boss? He liked that. He took a moment to admire the change three years of fighting had made in Mickey Smith. The boy had a sparse, well-trained figure now. And he'd been looking after Rose. Good. The Daleks tried to reassert their authority, but the Doctor kept them off balance with a line of patter similar to the one Rose had used. He reminded them that they'd lost the war, run away from it when he'd stood to fight. 

“Doctor, they’ve got names,” Rose said. 

Four Daleks with names, they could only be one group. “The cult of Skaro,” he exclaimed with a pleased smirk, “At last, I thought you were just a legend.”

He explained a bit about the Cult of Skaro, stalling for time to give Jake and his troops a chance to get into position, arm the explosives and take cover. The black Dalek threatened him, but he played the buffoon. As he stepped back, he drew out his sonic screwdriver. The Daleks recognized it, of course, labeling it a harmless probe. He corrected them to screwdriver but grudgingly acknowledged it was harmless.

“Doesn't kill. Doesn't wound. Doesn't maim. But I'll tell you what it does do. It is very good at opening doors,” he said and pressed the triggering sequence for the detonators.

There was a gratifying series of explosions. Doors flew from their hinges. A second later, gunfire erupted all around him. He hit the deck, pulling his young friends to the ground as he dropped. “Rose, get out” he shouted, pushing at her bottom, propelling her forward. The Cyberguns blasted over his head. Peeking around the Genesis Arc, he saw Rose scrambling toward the door. He rolled in the opposite direction and looked toward her again. Beyond her Pete was gesticulating. The Doctor drew fire away from them, dropping under another bolt of energy. Pete had Rose. Once she made it through the door, the Doctor found his feet and darted for safety. Mickey tarried to recover a gun. 

As the Doctor reached the exit, Rose yelled, “Mickey, come on.”

“Fire power restored,” a Dalek declared. 

Damn. He'd hoped his sonic pulse would scramble their wiring for a little longer than that, at least long enough to get everyone out of the room. He saw Mickey stumble and fall back into the Dalek's precious Arc. It seemed to burn his hand, he winced and jerked away from it. Time Lord science, the Doctor thought. But it still didn't look the least bit familiar to him. What the hell was it? 

Mickey got through the doors and the Doctor sealed them. 

“Jake, get to the stairwell,” he ordered as he herded his little family back toward the warehouses. 

Despite a raid on the storerooms, he hadn't managed to recover the one piece of alien technology he really needed: Magna-clamps. On the other hand, he had managed to reunite Rose and her alterna-dad. And on the way to the large warehouse, the one that masqueraded as a parking garage, they ran into a pair of Cyberman about to finish off Jackie. Pete and his big gun disposed of the enemy with a quick blast and, for a few moments, all the chaos fade away leaving their small group alone at the eye of the storm. 

When Pete and Jackie connected again, the Doctor couldn't help feeling elated. He couldn’t help comparing himself to Jackie as she told Pete there had never been anyone else. Mickey snorted, but the Doctor understood exactly what Jackie meant. If he lived another 900 years and took a dozen lovers, not one of them would ever replace Rose Marion Tyler. For him, too, there would never be anyone else. 

He smiled on Jackie, feeling a sudden deeper kinship with her, and he chuckled when she couldn't let go of her curiosity about Pete's fortunes. And when Rose's parents finally rushed into each other's arms, the Doctor found himself grinning ear-to-ear. The jubilant rush of blood to his head was not only for Rose. It was because in some way Rose's family had become his family. What an odd pair we are, he thought, as Mickey gave him a quick high-five, like Fagin's orphans, considered part of the family. And if his plan worked, his new family would be somewhere safe. He glanced at Rose. Her hands were folded, as if in prayer, knuckles pressed to her lips. She stood very still, transfixed by the sight of her parents holding onto one another. Finally, the universe had done something right.

It was the last thing that went right for him for a very long time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He had a plan.

A very good plan.

A plan based on Time Lord Science, and on everyone cooperating. 

Pete and Mickey would use their dimension-hopping discs to take Jackie and Rose to Pete's World. Once his family was secure, the Doctor would be free to deal with the Daleks. And their lesser Cyberfoes. He planned to open the breech to the void, sucking in every Dalek and Cyberman—sending them to Hell, as Mickey so succinctly put it. Of course, it would be tricky to do the job alone. He could very well end up sealed within the void himself. But Rose would be safe. Safe! Happy! With her mother. No, better than that; she would be with both of her parents. And Mickey. On a world that had never even heard of the Daleks. 

It was a good plan. 

Except the Tyler women were as cooperative as cats in harness. And the plan required him to be in two places at the same time. He'd need to be on opposite sides of the white room to operate the levers. This meant he would have to cross the room against the current created by the opened void. Also, it meant the Daleks would be alerted to his plan before he was ready to implement it. The breech would be active, but completely unstable. The Daleks would surely enter firing their weapons as they fought to escape the pull of the void. He'd probably be exterminated long before he could cross the room. It would be very rough going, even given his intention to hold fast to one magna-clamp while repositioning the other. Tricky, but doable. 

He watched Rose's face as he explained how it would all work. He'd expected their goodbye to be painful. He'd expected the sharp pang at the center of his chest when her expression changed to one of hurt confusion. But, as the full impact of his words dawned on her, she looked so vulnerable; he’d had to move away from her to keep from losing his courage. 

He took refuge, as he often did, in being very busy. Bouncing about, he braced himself for her arguments. 

He'd expected her to plead with him. 

He hadn't expected open defiance. Though, he probably should have.

“I'm supposed to go?” Rose asked her tone deceptively calm, a counterpoint to his deceptive frenzy.

“Yeah,” he said, dropping a magnaclamp, hoping the noise would cover any tremor in his voice.

“To another world, and then it gets sealed off?”

“Yeah,” he said again, trying for devil-may-care but managing only colorless and breathy. His gaze slipped to the side, avoiding hers. He couldn't bear to look at her for long, if he did he'd simply go to her, hold on and never let go.

“Forever?” she asked. 

His throat closed and he couldn't even manage one syllable agreement. Punching numbers into the computer, he remained stoically focused, but silent. What was there to say? She simply couldn't go forever. That wasn't possible, was it? What would he do without her? 

As if she also understood this, Rose snorted through a bemused smile and said exactly what he was thinking, “That's not going to happen.”

Yes! His soul declared triumphantly. It couldn't happen, could it? That was why this was such a good plan. When he'd come up with it, a very small, childish part of him told him it was all quite silly and that Rose would never let it happen. Even as his mind and body went through the motions of setting up computers, that small part of him refused to believe he was going through with this. Rose was eternal, his life mate. She would always come back to him. He believed in her. The universe simply wouldn't, couldn't separate them, not when he'd already lost so much. 

He glanced at the two magnaclamps as Rose argued with her mother. If she stayed, Rose could help him with the plan. It would work much better with two. But, now, Jackie was refusing to leave as well. And any second, the Daleks would notice the wave fluctuations in this room and know what he was doing. He steeled his resolve and eased the yellow disc from his pocket. Pete had also taken a disc out. Stepping closer to Rose, and, with a nod to Pete, he put the dimensional transporter over her head. Pete hit the button and Rose was gone. 

Only she wasn't, he could still feel her in the room, just on the other side of the wall. Until the breech closed, she would be right there. Almost beside him...almost...

“I think this is the on switch,” Rose said, brightly, as she popped back into his universe.

He wanted to scream, in joy and desperation. A heady cocktail of endorphins hit his blood stream, triggering a score of conflicting and aggressive emotions. At any other time, this sort of response would have cascaded into sexual display and release. Elated, he wanted to hug her. Frustrated, he wanted shake her. He wanted to make love to her, while scolding her. Before he could process more than one or tow of his many impulses, he pounced, seizing her arms. 

“Once the bridge collapses, that's it! You will never be able to see her again, your own mother.”

It was his trump card and he played it knowing he had to let her go. Rose flinched slightly, but her jaw set in a firm line and her gaze met his squarely. “I made my choice a long time ago,” she told him, softly assured, “And I'm never going to leave you.”

Well, what the hell could he say to that? It was how he felt as well. He would never leave her. There was a certain finality to it. They would stand or fall together. Somehow, he'd let himself imagine she could recover from losing him, be happy without him. But she'd been telling him all along she couldn't. For years now, she'd been telling him. He could see her upper lip trembling. Tell her now, he thought, tell her it's the same for you. Tell her you only sent her away because you can't bear to have her die here. 

And then what? He asked himself, panicking over it. What could he do? Take her away from all this, fly far away and let her planet burn? No! He couldn't do that. He was a Time Lord. The last of the Time Lords. So, when Rose asked him what she could do to help, he forced himself to release her. Passion still seethed in his vein, but they had a job to do. His voice grated harshly as he stabbed a finger at the far computers and told her how to set all coordinates to six. 

“And hurry up,” he snarled, inwardly reprimanding himself for wanting to take a moment to kiss her breathless.

She went obediently to work. He almost smiled at the diffident glance she shot him as she removed the disc from her neck and set it aside. If only she were this tractable when it mattered to one of his plans. 

“We've got Cybermen on the way up,” she said, as her security equipment beeped. 

His monitor had malfunctioned. He popped across the room to her side to verify the bad news. As he peered over her shoulder, his hand found its natural home at her waist. There was a bit of bared skin there, just enough to sooth his jangling nerves. He stroked her and his blood and brain spoke her name, Rose. I’m here, she said in his mind. And, despite the chilling sight of the Cybermen, he felt comforted. 

She’d been quite right about one thing: the universe kept trying to separate them, but it never, ever would. On the other hand, it might decide to kill them both together. The thought sent him dashing away with an inner oath. There was an improbable burst of weapons fire outside the door. Someone was still resisting, some remnant of Torchwood. His curiosity prodded him, but there was no time to investigate. Skidding to a halt at his computer terminal, he entered the necessary codes to activate the levers and waited for what seemed like an eternity but was, in all probability, less than a second. He beamed when the computerized voice informed him the levers were online.

“That's more like it,” Rose said, grinning. “Bit of a smile. The old team?”

He agreed. They were like any classic duo. “Hope and Glory. Mutt and Jeff. Shiver and Shake.”

“Which one's Shiver?” she asked, pulling a face. 

He thrust a magnaclamp into her arms and said, “Oh, I'm Shake.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There was a hole in the world, a howling abyss, the stuff of nightmares. He'd dreamed about it. For months on end, it had pursued him across time and space, a relentless prediction of hollow days and nights ahead. Understanding how important it was and how dangerous, he’d done everything in his power to avoid it. 

Yet, in the end, it was his hand that brought it into being. “The breech is open! Ha! Into the abyss!” 

His hand had destroyed his world. Filled with hubris, he'd entered those fatal calculations. And once again, the universe had laughed in his face. It had opened a maw that threatened to swallow him whole. And again, he screamed. Hands fisted around cold metal, he screamed his throat raw. Every cell in his body denied what his senses mercilessly reported. Rose had let go of her anchor. Faced with inevitable extermination, should the system fail, she'd chosen to fight, but she was losing the battle. 

_The valiant child, who will die in battle so very, very soon._

Any second now, she would die. The pull of the void was too strong. Her shoulders would dislocate and she'd be cast into hell. He saw her grip on the lever slip. The dimensional currents were tearing her in two, distorting her body. She couldn't possibly win out against such an unrelenting force.

“Rose,” he yelled. “Hold on.”

She sought his eye, held onto him as much as to the lever. One by one, the void pried her fingers free. He was losing her, losing Rose to the white room. Worms crawled around in his brain, leaving sticky tendrils of insanity in their wake. He reached for her, straining to take her hand, knowing they were too far apart. She fell and, as she did, one thing became quite clear to him: he'd never left the asylum. This was part of his madness, the cold spittle on his lips, the raw heat of his straining throat, this child he loved, her screaming and his, the howling nothingness, the loss. Everything would burn again. He would see to it that everything burned.

This time nothing would survive. He'd crack this universe like an egg and scramble it. Let them all learn what it meant to deny him...defy him. No second chances. 

Only there was one, a second chance. Pete caught her. Pete, bless him and keep him, took a second stab at becoming a family man. He popped into being and caught Rose a scant meter from the void. She threw one glance over her shoulder at the Doctor, one pleading glance, and then she was gone. 

“Systems closed,” the computer informed in a cool and emotionless manner.

It took a moment for him to register what he’d seen. It was over. He panted like a trapped animal, his hearts pounding, as he stared into the void in his mind, the empty place where Rose should be. He couldn't process the wall for a few seconds. Didn't realize the breech had closed, even though he'd been severed in two by it. But the rushing in his ears slowly faded and the tension in his body bled away, leaving him limp and exhausted. Rose had survived. He could hear her wailing through the minute fissures still connecting their two dimensions. She wasn't in Hell. She was safe, with her family. 

And, oh, yes, it hurt. It hurt so very much to be empty again. But he could wrap her around his pain. She was alive. Alive! This pain was nothing to what it might have been. He would gladly endure more; suffer anything, as long it kept Rose from the void. He'd been prepared, after all, to let her go. 

But Rose? Rose wasn't prepared. Her keening despair drew him to the wall. He touched her through it, pressed his cheek to the cool, white surface and imagined her just beyond it, beyond his reach. He gave much as he could give to her. He felt her respond, mirror him. But it was hopeless. They couldn't stand there forever, no matter how much they might comfort one another. Eventually, the fissures would seal and they would have nothing but memories. He had to let her go, give her a chance at a normal life. Steeling himself, he eased his hand away, stepped back and turned to leave. 

His leaden steps took him to the elevators, and then out into the street. He couldn't go back to the TARDIS, not yet. She would ask him about Rose. He walked, instead, toward the Powell Estates. Burning cars and fallen bodies gave mute testament to the extent of the battle that he'd halted. Sirens sounded all over the city. Survivors clung to one another, weeping and laughing. He felt numbly connected to them, but could neither laugh nor cry. No one approached him. He passed like a phantom through the city he'd just saved. 

Climbing the last set of stairs to the Tyler apartment, his hand closed around Rose's key and a new measure of pain assaulted him. It seemed to knock him out of his body. He couldn't feel the steps beneath his feet. The world faded, for a moment, into a sickly gray fog. The sound of alarms and shouting receded as he reached out to Rose with all of his longing. Stretched thin mentally, he searched for some answering spark from her. “Rose,” he called. “Rose?” And far away, like a whisper on the wind, he heard her. She was alive, safe. The effort left him weak and staggering and he nearly plummeted down the stairwell before he managed to make it into the apartment.

He didn't need his key. Someone, Cybermen or looters, had kicked in the door. It hung from one hinge and creaked horribly when he pushed through it. The television was gone and a few other items. The lights didn't work. Overall, the place looked ransacked and felt abandoned. But he was beyond caring. He needed to rest, to recover, and to do that he needed to feel close to Rose. Making his way to her room, he collapsed on her bed. Only there, surrounded by her scent and her things, did he process the extent of his loss. He retched, bile burning the back of his tongue. But he could not weep, could not wail out loud. His pain went far too deep. Fingers clawing at the bedspread, he drew his knees up, curling into a fetal ball around his hollow center. Nothing, there was nothing inside of him. No tears. No rage. No hope.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hello? Is anyone here? Mrs. Tyler?” a familiar voice sang out hours later. “I've just come to check on you. I hope you don't mind. Hello?”

Another voice cut across the first, this one a stranger, male and Pakistani, “Who are you? Why are you here?”

“Oh, you startled me. Hello, my name is Sarah Jane Smith,” the first voice answered. “I'm a friend of the Tyler family.”

“They are gone. And we have had enough looters.”

Sarah Jane laughed. “Do I look like a looter? Wait a moment,” there was a brief pause, “My identification. I'm a journalist.”

“From the BBC?”

“Freelance Investigative,” Sarah said, brusquely. “Were you here when this happened? Did the Cybermen do this? Kick the door in?”

“The what?”

“The metal men? The armored soldier?”

“I do not know. We were away. I work in a shop. Bell's Ready Wear? I stock. My wife, she works at Tesco. People say there were many looters just after. They stole my stereo CD player. And our son's video games. And my mother's wedding photo. Who would steal a wedding photo?”

“I'm sorry. Here, take my card. If you hear from the Tyler's call me. If I have any questions, I'll come see you. Which apartment?”

“525,” he said. “Just down there. Do you want me to stay here with you?” He didn't sound enthusiastic about the prospect.

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Sarah Jane said, dismissively. “I can wave at you on my way out, if you like.”

“Ah, you seem like a nice lady. Just be careful.”

“I will, thank you,” Sarah said, brightly adding, “Bye-bye!”

The departing man's tread was heavy on the stairs. He must have weighed sixteen stone. The Doctor listened to him thunder down two flights, before Sarah Jane closed the creaking door. Her light, cautious step led her directly to Rose's room. She gasped when she saw him and flurried across to the bedside.

“Doctor?” she said, crouching down before him. “Doctor? Are you hurt? Can you hear me?”

Yes, he certainly was hurt. Heartsick. Lost. He could hear her, too, but he didn't feel the need to tell her so. He stared straight through her, unresponsive, even when she waved her hand in front of his eyes. 

“Oh, God,” she said, settling to her knees. “It's Rose, isn't it?” He saw her glance toward the damaged front door. “Did they take her...the Cybermen?” Looking at him again, she gave a tiny impatient snort and, grasping his shoulder, shook him. “Doctor? Answer me! Is she dead?”

“Gone,” he managed to croak.

“Gone? Where?”

It took a great deal of effort but he focused on her briefly and said, “Far away.”

“What does that mean? How far? Why are you just…lying here like a lump?” When he failed to answer her, she grumbled, “Fine, let's get you sorted out, first, and then we'll figure out what to do.” He didn't know what she meant by 'sorted out', but he soon learned. 

Standing, Sarah Jane dusted off the front of her jeans as she gave the situation some thought. He could see her quite clearly, despite the advancing twilight. The hall light had come on sometime ago, when electricity was restored to the area. The dim glow was all he needed. It hadn't bothered him. Sarah Jane, however, set out to bother him. 

The first thing she did was switch on the bedside lamp, shining it straight into his face. He winced, shielding his eyes against the glare. Then, crossing the room, she hit the overhead light as well, flooding his dark cocoon of grief with dazzling brightness. He stifled a whimper and curled into a tighter ball, determined to remain unmoved by her efforts to stir him. A moment later he thought he'd succeeded in intimidating her as she bustled out of the room and proceeded to bang about in the kitchen. 

Any hope he had that she would leave was dashed, however, by the sound of the kettle whistling. She was making tea. Tannins to stimulate his synapses, clever girl. He wouldn't drink it, of course, but the smell alone would kick some life back into him. It would inspire animation he didn't want. He wanted his synapses to hibernate. He wanted to fade away, maybe die, maybe regenerate. He didn’t want to confront his loss, not yet, maybe not ever. If Sarah Jane hoped to rouse him from his self-imposed exile, she'd have to do better than a nice cuppa. 

Unfortunately, she knew that. “Let’s see if this makes an impression,” she said, just as he was settling into his mindless gray haze again.

He heard the click of her quick tread approaching, but was completely unprepared when something soft and fluttery hit him in the face. He inhaled reflexively and his brain came alive. His eyes popped open. Trillions of synapses fired. His cnidocysts bristled and he lit up inside like Time Square on New Year's Eve. Rose. Her scent pervaded the blue fabric veiling his eyes. He instinctively reached for her again, probing the wound. As he strained the limits of his telepathic connection to her, his fingers clutched at the silken material, dragging it away from his face. Holding it up, he saw it was her blue and purple shirt. The one she'd worn on their visit to New Earth. He drew another breath, hoping to clear the perfume of Rose from his head, but it was too late to undo what had been done. 

“You can find her with that, can't you?” Sarah Jane challenged him. “There's some kind of connection to the clothes we wear. You can use to trace her. I’ve seen you do it, link up your mind to someone and follow them like a bloodhound.”

She was right. And yet, she had no idea what she had unleashed. Rose was here. Almost, here. His true companion. The air had thickened around him. It was full of charged particles, every one of them reminding him of his loss and his need for comfort. Anguish and ardor combined into a maelstrom of primitive impulse. He sat up in the bed, searching for Rose. He needed to be complete. When his predatory gaze settled on Sarah Jane, he saw her only as a means to that end. 

His biology demanded certain behaviors. Once he'd found a true companion, he was supposed to breed, to keep at it until he succeeded in reproducing. If he lost his mate, he was programmed to die, to just give up, unless he could find another female to produce his offspring. He eyed Sarah Jane. Even if this one proved too old to breed, she could alleviate his despair, at least for an hour or two. He would be able to think clearly again. Taking her would give him some relief from this relentless clamoring for Rose. It wasn't unprecidented. He thought of Omega, who had used human surrogates when his true companion refused him. Would it be so bad to give Sarah Jane what she'd always wanted? Once she was drugged and he'd entered her mind, he could even be the image of his former self for her, all teeth and curls.

He was tensed to pounce when she said, “Or are you just going to abandon Rose, too?”

The question splashed cold water in the face of his animal self. He remembered who he was and what he had done all those years ago. He had abandoned Sarah Jane. She'd loved him and he'd left her before things could get too far out of hand. He’d been a Time Lord, then. And he was a Time Lord, still. He belonged to Rose, but he would not be ruled by his libido. He would not diminish his love by using Sarah Jane to satisfy some biological urge. It wouldn't make anything better for her or him. It would only complicate an already impossible situation. These weren't primitive time and he wasn't Omega. Sarah Jane was his friend. He adored her. 

But as she reached for him he ducked away from her. “I...need a minute,” he grated through clenched teeth. “Alone.”

“I'm not leaving this room until I get some answers,” she told him. “Rose is my friend.”

Narrowing his eyes, he snarled, “Rose is everything.”

“Yes, I can see that,” she admitted, edging to the side, instinctively avoiding easy capture. Somehow, she must have sensed the danger she was in. “Doctor? Are you ill?”

“I’m…” he took a steadying breath and forced himself to relax, forced his bristling arousal to subside. “I’m fine.”

“You look half-mad to me.”

He wanted to rage at her. He wanted to shout, “She’s gone!” Gone—the word hammered against the inside of his skull. He clutched at his temples with both hands, fingers fisting around tufts of his hair. No matter what, he couldn't allow himself to slip back into raving instablity. 

“I lost her,” he said, hollowly. “And I could shatter this world.” His intense, wild-eyed stare lifted and intersected Sarah Jane’s steady one. “Do you understand that?”

She did understand. He could see the fear welling up in her. But she swallowed and raised her chin a little. “Yes, I suppose you could. But I don't think you will.”

“Be sure.” He needed her to convince him.

“All right," she said, exhaling. "You're not just any Time Lord. Even if you have the power to destroy us, you're not like the Master or the rest. And whatever has happened to her, whatever is happening to you, this is still your home away from home. The Earth and Rose are still part of you. She wouldn't want you to give up, to stop being the Doctor. Wherever she is, right now, the thought of you keeps her fighting. I know...because...” She broke off, staring beyond him. “She loves you.”

_Let me back. Let me back._

He remembered how desperate Rose sounded in the white room, how she seemed to be pounding on the walls of reality. Sarah Jane was right. Rose would keep fighting. She'd never give up on him, never live the life he wanted her to have. And it was just possible that she, too, could shatter worlds. He had to warn her not to try. And he had to say everything he'd put off saying. I love you. I'll miss you. I'm okay. Goodbye. He couldn't let Rose go without giving her closure. Humans could remain loyal forever, he'd learned this through Sarah Jane.

There was so much he should have told her, too. Seeing her with fresh eyes, he said, “I'm so sorry. I should have told you what you wanted was impossible. I should have said a proper goodbye.”

“You got to it, eventually,” she said, shrugging as if it didn't matter to her anymore, but he knew by the glistening of tears in her eyes that it did. 

He smiled, a sad smile that didn't warm either of them. Then, he lifted his gaze to the ceiling. “The fissures are closing, sealing her away,” he said, seeing the last few gaps on the far side of the galaxy. “There isn't much time.” Springing suddenly to action, he snatched Rose's shirt from the bed, and then whirled about to face Sarah Jane. “Thank you,” he said, thrusting out his hand before changing his mind and leaning in to place a quick kiss on her cheek. “You're my best friend, Sarah Jane.”

“K-9 will be very disappointed if he hears.”

“He will, yes. So we won't tell him. I have to go, now,” he said, backing toward the door. “There's still a chance I can reach her if I hurry. And," he hesitated slightly, "I'm not sure if I'll see you again.”

“Same old story,” Sarah Jane said with a smile. “Give Rose my love, when you find her.”

He already had reached the hallway, but her words turned him around again. “She's not coming back,” he said, his voice cloudy with anguish. “But she can have a good life, a normal life, if I let her know this is goodbye.”

“Can she?” Sarah Jane wondered, but he didn't stay to debate it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was harder getting into the Torchwood Institute than it had been wandering out, but he managed to convince the armed guards that he was the one and only Doctor and had come to help. Their bureaucracy was in chaos, but there was enough infrastructure left to assure he was recognized. He presented himself with an absolute authority and told them he needed his equipment to deal with this crisis. After a bit of questioning, they led him to the TARDIS and he simply popped inside and faded out of their lives. 

Navigating proved problematic at first. The TARDIS responded sluggishly to his interface commands. He patted her, stroked her, but nothing seemed to improve her performance. She seemed...he supposed the word was inattentive, less aware of him somehow. It crossed his mind to wonder if she was in shock, maybe missing Rose, too. After all, she'd been closer to Rose than to any other companion save Susan. 

“Steady on, old girl,” he soothed, paging through star charts on the monitor. “It'll be just you and me again for a bit, but we'll get by...same old life.” 

He adjusted the Meliman Spectrograph, searching the heavens for a likely star. It would take an obscene amount of energy to project his image across the void. He'd have to burn up a sun just to say goodbye. But it would be worth it if Rose could find a measure of happiness without him. 

 

End This Part


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose is trapped in the alternative universe. Finally, she has the family she'd dreamed of her whole life. She tries to become part of the new existence, to have the normal life the Doctor wanted her to have, but she feels empty without him. And more and more she is depressed and drifting, a shadow of her former self.

Wrapped in a warm cocoon of blankets, skin-on-skin with her Doctor, Rose floated in utter bliss. This was her favorite part of loving him--when he fell asleep next to her, when they were naked and sated and bundled up together. Knowing he trusted her enough to be willingly vulnerable made her giddy, even as it inspired a liquid bloom of heat low in her belly. Knowing the TARDIS trusted her to keep him safe and content made her feel complete. She'd found her purpose in life and was fulfilled. No, more than fulfilled, enriched by it.

“Rose?” Her name whispered through the air. “Rose?” The breathy sound tickled along her cheek.

He was calling her. Why was he calling her? 

Disturbed, she stirred, reaching for him, wondering why he was no longer beside her. They'd been touching a moment ago. Where could he have gone? When she tried to focus on his voice, she lost it and her deep contentment swirled away as well. Sitting up, she pushed the covers back and saw he was gone from their bed. The room seemed to expand around her, leaving her isolated on an island of blankets and pillows. She swung her feet to the floor. 

And the scene changed. 

She was running down an endless hallway, panting and looking over her shoulder, running and running toward a distant door. The door meant safety. It glowed as bright as the sun, beaming constant reassurance, but she knew she would never reach it. The narrow way stretched ahead of her on and on into eternity. There was sand underfoot. Her skin overheated as she struggled not to slide sideways, lifting her knees high, as if she were climbing beach dunes. She was burning up, burning away into nothing. The wall roundels got smaller and smaller in the distance. When they vanished, Rose knew she would die. Needing to break free of this nightmare, she turned around, only to find her retreat cut off by a smooth white wall. No roundels, she realized, panic seizing her. This wasn't her home. She didn't belong here.

_Let me back. Let me back._

Blinded by tear-thinned mascara, invisible fingers choking off her air, she smacked the flat of her hand against the featureless wall. Her palm stung as she struck again and again, demanding reality relent--the universe obey her. _Let. Me. Back._ Drowning, she started to gasp, struggling for her life. He was right there. She could feel him, leaning his cheek into hers. Her wracking sobs abated. She shifted to mirror him, carefully positioning the tips of her fingers above his. Even on the other side, he was still part of her. He quieted her weeping, calmed her churning mind. He helped her draw her first full, deep breath in her new world. They sighed as one, exhaling tension. 

_Oh, Rose. Rose. Help me._

She felt ashamed of her weeping. He was so alone, unable to save her--help her. He wanted to, she knew, but he simply couldn't. It would mean destroying both worlds. She couldn't ask him to do that. She had to be strong. Knowing he was waiting for her to answer him, her shoulders slumped. She felt him acknowledge her surrender, sensed him fading away, diminished and heartsick. As he drew back to leave, her knees started to buckle. She leaned heavily into the wall to keep from crumpling to the floor in a heap. She wanted to wail and tear at the plaster until her nails were broken and bleeding.

“No. No. He needs me. Let me back!”

“Rose?” Her mother spoke soothingly. “Rose, sweetheart, wake up.”

She woke with a start, the shrill pleading still echoing in her head. Her nose was stuffy, her throat sore. Her fingers were stiff claws curled into the sheets. It hurt to straighten them. She often woke this way, stiff and sore as she tumbled into an alien reality. For a second or two, all she recognized was her mother. She looked around the small room, struggling to place it. It had the look of a hotel.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Stavanger, Norway,” Jackie said, plainly worried. “Don't you remember? You've had a fever. Been in and out of it for two days. We had to get a nurse in. I've been beside myself.”

Eyes fixed on her mother, Rose drew an unsteady breath. Jackie Tyler had changed. Gone were the dark roots and shiny polyester robes. This new Jackie dressed in combed Egyptian cotton and silk. Her hair color had the sheen of professional high-and-low tones. Even first thing in the morning, worried for her daughter, she had perfectly powdered cheeks and freshly manicured nails. But she was still Rose's mum, from the true Earth. She seemed somehow more...real...than anything else in the room.

“I remember,” Rose said, rubbing her brow. “We came to see him. The Doctor. He called me here?”

“And you would stay there on that beach, in the cold and the wet, for hours,” Jackie scolded, holding her arms open for Rose to receive a hug. 

“Always wait five and a half hours,” Rose muttered, letting her mum gather her in. “It's our rule.”

“So you said,” Jackie said resigned to it, stroking a hand up and down Rose's back. “But you nearly caught your death. You've been burning up, sweetheart. And raving about walls.”

“I do feel a bit peculiar,” Rose said. “Like I'm...empty.”

A pricking in the corner of her eyes, brought her hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose. But she didn't weep. She'd run out of tears, shed the last of them on the beach. From now on, she intended to leave the crying to her dreams. There she would weep and wail. Every night she dreamed of him. Every morning on waking, she had to reacquaint herself to her loss and gasp her way to normal breathing. Pillowed against her mother's breast, she listened to Jackie's heart beating and willed herself to relax. Slowly, the shuddering chill ebbed away, leaving her wrung out but almost whole again. 

“You're still having those dreams, aren't you?” Jackie asked, gently combing her fingers through Rose's hair. When she nodded, Jackie said, “I wish you'd reconsider about seeing the therapist, sweetheart. I don't normally hold with such busy bodies, but now you've seen the Doctor, now you know he can't get back to you...well, your father says this friend of his is very good. Helped him deal with the separation and the idea of divorce. And how weird is that? Thinking about the other me...divorcing him?”

Sitting straighter, Rose shifted to one side, to look at her mother as she answered. “I don't know what I would say to a therapist.” She tried out an opening line. “Hi, I'm here from another world and I'm having a little trouble adjusting? Or maybe...I've lost everything...my life...my future...the only man I'll ever love and...” Her chipper facade cracked and she turned her head to the side, blinking away tears. “I never even told him, Mum. Not until it was too late. I should have said it everyday, but whenever I tried...I'd just get so choked up.”

“He knows now,” Jackie said, sandwiching her daughter's hands between hers. “And I bet he always knew. He married you, didn't he?”

Darting a shy glance at her mother from beneath lowered lashes, Rose swallowed hard. “I'm sorry, we didn't tell you about that. We were going to, honestly, but I thought you would be upset...and I thought there'd be plenty of time.” She fell silent, letting the last excuse hang heavy in the air, shutting her eyes again to deal with the pain. She'd thought they would have forever.

“Now, hush. I won't have you upsetting yourself. You've been sick." She plumped up Rose's pillows, settling her against them. "Are you hungry? I can ring for room service.” She reached for the phone. “A bit of tea and toast?”

“Look at you...ringing for service,” Rose grinned.

“I could get used to this life,” Jackie agreed with a theatrical pat to her hair. Focusing on Rose in all seriousness, she added, “So could you. You have to put that other life behind you.”

“I can't...you don't know...”

“I do know,” Jackie said, gently, “I lost the man I loved once. He was my world and I had to go on all alone.”

“You had me,” Rose reminded her. Jackie's sympathetic murmur readily acknowledged this and Rose struggled with her need to tell her mother the whole truth. Staring up at her, she sighed. “I...it's just...there's one more thing I never told you,” she said, faintly. Avoiding her mother's questioning eye, she stroked her fingers along the neckline of her pajamas. Then, her gaze lifted. “Have you seen my necklace? The TARDIS key?”

Jackie scanned the room and spotted the leather thong Rose usually wore. It lay curled in a tray on top of the hotel room dresser. “There it is,” she said, indicating the direction with a bob of her head. “We wouldn't lose it.”

“I want to show you something,” Rose said. Scrambling around her mum, she tried to get out of bed but found she was too weak. When the edges of her vision went black, she flopped back down onto her pile of pillows and said, “Can you get it for me?” Jackie murmured her assent and went to the dresser. “Oh, and I could use a few of those tissues, too, please. My nose is dripping.”

Receiving her bounty, Rose thanked her mother as she settled the box of tissues by her hip. She took a moment to fondle the leather cord of her necklace, sliding it through her fingers, before settling it in her lap so she could tend to her nasal drip. She blew and blotted and disposed of the used tissues in a tiny bin by the bed. Finally, composed, she picked up the key again, and edging it aside, showed Jackie a slim silver tube hanging on the cord as well. 

“Wha's that?” Jackie asked, peering at it.

“You'll see,” Rose said as she gripped the tube and pointed it toward the far wall. Her thumb shifted slightly, pressing a hidden mechanism and an image appeared in midair, a paused movie still of Rose whirling around, arms outstretched. “Can you close the curtains?” she asked, fiddling with the tube.

Jackie moved to obey but faltered when another picture bloomed to life, a moving video this time with high definition so precise it looked more like a window in the wall than a recording. In the bright square, the Doctor was flying a kite. With an incoherent whimper, Rose quickly changed the scene. To Jackie's delight and amazement, there appeared to be lots of home movies on the device. Scenes skimmed by in a blur of color. She saw Rose several times and thought she saw Mickey. She would have asked to see more but the white-line set to her daughter's mouth made her nervous.

“The TARDIS records everything,” Rose told her in a monotone. “I don't know how it works, but this,” she released the pressure on the device and the flashing images slowed, “lets me play back whatever I want to see again.”

Jackie watched in amazement as Rose and the Doctor made snow angels in the virtual window. She absorbed the happy grins and playful cuddles they gave one another as they danced and shopped and saved a dozen worlds in quick scene-skipping succession. She'd seldom seen a more perfectly matched couple. In fact, she could think of no one else in her acquaintance. She and Pete had argued constantly. But Rose and her Doctor seemed genuinely delighted with each other. Of course, it was easy to appear happy in photographs, but seeing them again, she remembered how they had been when they visited her. They had sported about the place, even in the worst sort of circumstances, laughing and sharing secret glances.

When the fast forward stopped, one scene held steady on the wall. The illusionary window showed an alien landscape, orange and rocky. Herds of some horned animal grazed in the distance, while in the foreground a young girl of about twelve sat on a rocky parapet. The wind ruffled her brown, shoulder-length hair. Her heavy brows were furrowed in concentration as she studied a piece of machinery in her lap. It was easy to see her father in her. 

But Jackie immediately recognized Rose's mouth and nose and exclaimed in wonder, “Gawd, never say I'm a Granny.”

“We had a child,” Rose confirmed, misty eyes focusing on the scene. Jackie squeaked in amazement, but before she could blurt out her first question, Rose pressed on, “A little girl, named Susan. We lost her.”

Swallowing down her original line of inquiry, Jackie processed the painful ramifications of those simple words. She spoke with motherly consideration. “You lost her? But she's...did she die?”

“No.” Rose shook her head, but then reconsidered. “Or, yes...I suppose she did...in the Time War. I, God, this is so hard to talk about,” she murmured, casting her gaze to the ceiling. She pressed the knuckle of her free hand to her upper lip. Her wrist jerked and the image on the wall changed. Now, there was a still shot of Mickey arguing with some furry aliens. 

“I've got a granddaughter and I didn't know. Why does she look so old in this picture? I'm only forty-one and you're only...” It struck her mid-calculation that Rose had lost a daughter as well as a husband. She remembered very clearly how the soft baby scent of her infant Rose helped her cling to life after Pete died. “Oh, my Rose, you've lost so much.”

“Close the curtains,” Rose repeated in a very small voice and Jackie hastened to pull the cord. 

In the semi-dark room, the image seemed to become part of the wall and appeared startlingly vivid. Returning to the video of Susan again, Rose said, “I got pregnant straight away. As soon as we started...the first time we...”

“Just like me and your dad,” Jackie nodded. “And your aunt Caro. And cousin Louise. It's almost a family tradition.”

“Tell me about it,” Rose groaned. “I never wanted that to happen to me. I was so careful with Mickey and Jimmy. But the Doctor... I suppose I didn't think it could happen. And he didn't understand why I wasn't happy. You wouldn't believe how excited he was. He was bouncing around.”

“Nothing new about that,” Jackie said, dryly.

Unable to force a chuckle through her clenching throat, Rose choked on it. “No, I guess not,” she said though her coughing laugh. Shaking off the wave of melancholy that threatened to consume her again, she went on, “Anyway, I had a complete melt down. I didn't want to have a baby. I wasn't ready...”

“Oh...sweetheart...you didn't...?” She glanced at the image again, reassured that Rose couldn't have had an abortion if the girl was sitting right there on a rock. Though, you never knew with aliens, they could get up to all sorts of things, maybe the girl could come back from the dead like her father.

“No,” Rose shook her head quickly. “I mean, I thought about it. But the Doctor wouldn't hear of it, of course. He was furious. We had this horrible fight. And then, before we could decide what to do...something else happened...I...well, I went to see his people...”

“His people? But, you said, they were all dead.”

“They are.” Rose scratched behind her ear, squinting as she thought about how convoluted her life was on the TARDIS. “It's too hard to explain...I'm not sure I even understand it properly...the simple answer is we had a time machine. I got sick."

"Oh," a light dawned in Jackie's mind, "Is that what was wrong with you? When you came home that time?"

"Yeah, because you can't have a baby in the TARDIS and...”

“Well, he might have thought of that before he got you pregnant,” Jackie grumbled. 

“I don't think he thought about anything..not while we were...intimate.”

“Typical man.”

“But he's not,” Rose said. “That was the problem. Sometimes we didn't speak the same language. He didn't understand what I was on about. Like whether or not we needed protection. I should have spelled it out more clearly. He thought I'd be happy, too. See? His people didn't really have children the old fashioned way anymore, hadn't for ages. It was all done with test tubes or some such. But even back in the day...they still didn't keep their children around. They'd just settle for a bit for the pregnancy, and then leave their children behind. The Doctor assumed we would leave her, Susan, with Sarah Jane and just...”

“Sarah Jane?” Jackie yelped, indignantly. “Sarah Jane! I like that. And why wouldn't you leave her with me, I'd like to know? I'm your mother. Her own family. What's wrong with the two of you? Why would you have a baby and then just leave her somewhere when...”

“Mum,” Rose snapped. “Look, we didn't get to sort it all out. I wasn't going to leave her anywhere. But, the TARDIS sent me back in time, all on my own, and I got sick and I had to give her up.”

“Give her up? Like adoption?”

“No! No, I wouldn't do that. But...I didn't have a lot of choices. I met another Doctor...you know how he changed his face?” Jackie nodded, but Rose paused to think for a moment. They'd come a long way in their relationship. Rose had shared a lot of her feelings. But the entire story would only confuse Jackie, so she edited it severely. Pressing on without a qualm about lying, she said, “Well, he's done that a bunch of times. And this other Doctor, he helped me and he has our baby.”

“He has her? She's with her father,” Jackie said on a sigh, relaxing out of her bristle as she accepted it. “A little girl?” she breathed, suddenly awed by the news. “My granddaughter. Is this the only picture?”

Rose flicked the device in her hand and another picture bloomed. This one of the same dark-haired girl only older. She was standing in front of a pile of junk and clutching a stack of school books. She wore Capri pants and a jumper that would have been modish in 1960.

Going to the wall, Jackie studied Susan closely. She reached up to stroke the image, touching hair and cheek. “How old is she here?”

“Fifteen. This was taken in London. In 1964. She attended one of our schools for a few months.”

“Oh, she looks just like you, sweetheart.”

“I see him.”

“She's got his coloring, all right. And that stubborn chin. But that's your nose and mouth. Even the eyebrows.” Jackie turned back to beam at her daughter. “Oh, Rose, she's beautiful.”

“She is,” Rose said, biting her lip to steady it before adding, “And brilliant, too. Just like her dad. She rescued the TARDIS from a junkyard and tinkered on her until she got her working again. That other video was the first thing recorded by the TARDIS after the refit.”

“The Tylers have always been good with machinery. Look at your father, inventing all those gadgets.”

“Only the TARDIS isn't a machine, not really. She's more like a person.”

“Well, you were always good with people,” Jackie said, unruffled by the correction. “You get on with everybody...even aliens.”

“Speaking of,” Rose sighed, regretfully turning off her mini-projector. “I should be getting up. We need to get back London. All of us missing from Torchwood can't be good for the planet.”

“Your father said there's no rush. We'll go when you feel up to it, sweetheart. You know you don't have to work anymore.”

Despite the lump in her throat, Rose laughed. “I do have to work. You have the house to look after and your club meetings. But I can't just sit around all day. I've got to be...out there. Torchwood needs me. I know about aliens and I can still translate their languages.”

“Don't you think that's odd?” Jackie asked. “When the Doctor was ill you couldn't?

“Maybe...maybe it's a sign that...” She swallowed her qualifier, thinking her mother wouldn't understand or appreciate her efforts to find a way back home.

But Jackie surprised her by saying, “You think it's a sign you have to keep looking for a way back to him?”

“Yeah,” Rose said on a breath. “If we're still in contact somehow...if he can come through like he did on the beach...maybe there's a way for me to go home. He told me not to try. But how can I just...give up?”

To her relief, her mother didn't argue this point. Instead, she gave a happy little bounce and said, “Right, breakfast. I'll have them send up your favorite: cinnamon sprinkle toast.”

Rose huffed in exasperation as her mother beat a hasty retreat. “Mum?” she whined in a carrying voice, wincing as her feet hit the cold floor and made her aware of a pressing need for the bathroom. “I'm not six, you know. You can't cheer me up with toast.” 

The last word caused her a twinge as she remembered the Doctor's fascination with toasters. Making for the tiny bathroom, she resigned herself to her loneliness. It wasn't the first stabbing memory of the day and it wouldn't be the last. Everything reminded her of him, of their aborted future. She turned her head away when she saw couples holding hands in the park and burst into dry sobs over Tickle Me Elmo ads. Yet, somehow, she managed to function despite being lacerated by longing every hour on the hour. She managed to keep going.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Keep going...keep going...DAMN!” Mickey growled, slamming his palm down on the desktop, as his pixilated alter-ego dissolved into a bloody smudge on the computer screen. 

“Do the people upstairs know they are paying you to play _Flags of Empires_?” Rose said from his doorway.

Spinning his chair around, Mickey pressed a hand to his chest. “Rose? Stop sneaking up on me, like that. Nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“Worried about getting caught?”

“Not much. I can usually hear approaching footsteps echoing along the hall...all that tile. Besides nobody comes down here except you and Jake. Not until there's bad guys on the radar. I'm a soldier, babe,” he said, giving her a fly hip-hop hand gesture. “I'm a warrior on the mean streets of alternative Earth. Ready to saddle up any time, day or night.” He leaned forward to tap the handset of his desk phone. “Just waiting for the call.”

Weary from the most annoying workday yet, Rose sank into the edge of his desk and, bracing her hands behind her hips and crossing her legs at the ankles, asked, “Am I invisible?” 

He peered at her. “You might be a little transparent," he said, casually, then he laughed at his lame pun. Processing the pained glare she gave him, he clicked the game window of his computer closed, folded his arms and gave her his full attention. “You seem solid enough to me," he said, then leeringly added, "especially in that suit.” Rose rolled her eyes but didn't fight it when her mouth tipped up in a hint of a smile. Mickey grinned back at her, obviously happy to have lightened the mood, and said, “What brought this on? Suzi ignoring you again?”

Rose lost her slight smile. “It's not just her. Ever since Norway...I...” She sighed and started over. “Look, I'm not crazy. I know I was upset yesterday, about the explosion, but...”

“Rodriguez apologized, right?” Mickey asked. “It had to be scary for you, but that sort of thing can happen. Momentary loss of concentration.”

“I could have been killed.”

“He thought you'd cleared the building, that's all. The sensors must have been on the blink.”

“It's not just that. Costello and Hank aren't the only ones ignoring me. I waited for thirty minutes at the lunch cart today and never got served. And I just gave a ten minute report on the Loqu from NGC2024 and nobody listened to a word I said. They kept talking all they way through my report. Most of them didn't even look my way.”

“Marines?” Mickey asked, making it sound like an excuse. When Rose nodded, he shrugged. “Come on, Rose. Those guys live for the fight. They aren't interested in alien signals, not unless there's going to be bloodshed.”

“I suppose,” Rose grudgingly admitted. Tugging at her hoop earring, she frowned at the view out his open door. “Nobody cares about diplomacy until its too late to apply it and then they're ringing your line. Or mine.” She put on a barking military voice and said, “Miss Tyler I'm afraid there have been some losses in Cardiff. Can you tell us why this thing is barbecuing the Mayor?”

“Are these Loqus the sort to cook a minor politician?”

“How should I know? We've only just made contact. And...” She bit her lip, her gaze flitting by his like a restless butterfly. After a moment's hesitation she turned to face him squarely. Leaning closer, she whispered, “And, between you and me, it's completely gone now. I can't translate anything. The languages sound familiar, yeah? But I'm not hearing English.”

“Nothing but static?” He asked. When she nodded confirmation, he set his jaw and considered the problem. “Why static? When the Doctor was sick you heard alien just like everybody else, right?”

“The Doctor and I got a lot closer during the last few years. I figured I got some vibrations or something from him.”

“Like how you heard him calling to you?” Mickey guessed.

“Yeah. You know what I think? I think closing the final crack in the universe sealed me off from him and the TARDIS. And now, I can't understand aliens any better than the rest of you.”

“But we're not getting static,” Mickey pointed out. “It's weird, I mean, why static? You should have asked the Doctor about it when you had the chance.”

“We only had two minutes,” Rose reminded him. “Two minutes. And there were so many things I wanted to say.” 

Mickey stood and clasped her shoulders, giving them a squeeze. “Hey, it's okay. You still know more about aliens than anybody else on this planet. Unless there's a parallel Doctor.”

“I wish you would stop going on about that,” Rose growled, shoving him away. “There are no parallel Time Lords. It's a Time Lord thing.”

“Right, because they're transdimensional,” Mickey said, parroting back the reason she'd given him a dozen times.

“At least you listen to me once in a while,” Rose sighed. “That means we'd have to be a lot further away from our Earth, somewhere not parallel, to even approach something like Time Lords. They used to create these parallel dimensions, yeah?”

“I love it when you talk technical,” Mickey smirked. 

“Be serious.”

“I'm just saying,” he remarked, but he tried to focus. “So when something went wrong with history...like zeppelins, but no airplanes...the Time Lords made this world?”

“Yeah, and the only way we would have a Time Lord around is if he's been imprisoned here. And that wouldn't be good.”

“He...or she? Could be a Time Lady, right?” Mickey said hopefully. “One that's looking for a handsome and daring young man to show around the universe?”

Rose laughed in spite of her gray mood. “You wish. But, I think I'm the only one imprisoned here. Just your luck, hey? And you've checked and rechecked the Torchwood files, right? No sign of them?”

“Nope. But don't you think it's strange? You weren't here. He's not here. But we have a Torchwood just the same?”

“Not really. Time fractures. Universes slide off like icebergs from a glacier. Queen Victoria still had werewolf troubles. She still learned about aliens at the Torchwood Estate and Sir Robert still gave his life defending her.” Rose brushed a spec of imaginary dust from her skirt. “The only humbling thing is history didn't really need us: the Doctor and I. It fixed itself just fine.”

“Except the monarchy fell and the Republic took its place.”

“The Queen got a bit more than a nip in this universe,” Rose agreed, feeling better than she had all morning. Talking to Mickey always cheered her up. He reminded her of home. “That'll teach her to banish the Doctor.”

Mickey changed the subject, before Rose lost her good mood. “So, how's your mum doing?”

“Her ankles are swelling and her back hurts. But she's over the morning sickness. She keeps saying she's a cow, but she's hardly showing.” She thought about her brief pregnancy. Would she have looked as lovely as her mother did right now? 

“She's glowing, hey?”

“I hope I look that good if I ever have a baby?”

“If? I thought you'd decided to become a nun. Is there a man on your horizons? I only ask because your mother demands to know what I know every time she sees me, and I'm coming over for Sunday dinner.”

Rose went pale, turning her head to stare out the window, as she said, “I thought she'd stopped asking...there's no one and there never will be.” Whipping back to glare at him, she demanded, “Mickey, how can you even...?”

He held up both hands in surrender. “I'm sorry,” he said with sincerity. “I know you'll carry that torch forever. But you wanting kids is a new development and...”

“I just thought maybe I might use a donor. Someday. No man involved.” 

“It's like that is it?” Mickey took his jacket from his chair back and slipped it on. “Seems to me there's got to be a little involvement.” He nudged her with an elbow. “If you're looking to go with a turkey baster, you'll have to count me out, Martha's got me on a tight rein.”

Forgetting her brimming tears, Rose laughed, flashing the pink tip of her tongue at him. “I was thinking of looking up Jack Harkness.”

“Captain Hair Gel? Please! You can do better.” When Rose failed to respond to his teasing, he said, “Isn't he a criminal mastermind or something, now? He would have kept on with the conman stuff, right? Since you never rescued him?” 

“I wonder,” Rose mused, obviously following her own train of thought. “I made him immortal, you know? I looked into the TARDIS and...” She fell silent, staring at the transparent reflection of her body in the window glass. She looked like a ghost against the night sky beyond the window. Something tugged on her mind and, all at once, she needed to get out of the office. The walls were too white and bare. She pushed away from the desk, saying, “No roundels.”

“The musical group?”

“What?” Halfway to the door, she paused to throw a scowl over her shoulder at him. 

“Martha and the roundels?”

“No, it's...” Hand to her forehead, she snorted, dismissively, “never mind.”

“Got a headache?”

“Look? Speaking of Martha....I know the two of you are bursting with young love, but if you're going to bring Miss Martha Jones by the house, can you talk to her about being so loud? She woke me up last night with the soliloquy.”

“With the who?” Mickey said, gathering up his keys and heading for the door. “Best come on, I'll buy you a sandwich. You haven't eaten and you've started to babble.”

“I'm not babbling. Last night,” Rose said, hurrying to catch him before he reached the elevators. “I heard Martha stomping around in the house must have been two in the morning. She was quoting Shakespeare, I think. Bellowing it out.”

“I don't know what you heard,” Mickey laughed, “But Martha and I were in town last night, visiting her folks.”

“It couldn't have been the telly, it sounded just like her.”

“Maybe you were dreaming,” Mickey said. “Sometimes I dream about this huge explosion and the noise wakes me up.”

“But I was already awake...” Rose mumbled.

Something hummed in her right ear. Wincing, she pressed her hand to the shell of it. She could hear her blood rushing through her veins. The sound of her breathing overshadowed the ding of the arriving lift. Mickey stepped into the elevator car and she followed him, but as the doors were closing, clear as a bell, she heard the Doctor say, “Give me your huddle masses yearning to breath free.” She lunged at the closing door panels, jamming her arm into the shrinking space. 

“Doctor?” she yelped, before turning to Mickey. “Did you hear that?” she demanded, forcing her way into the hallway, again. “Did you hear him?”

“I don't hear anything?” Mickey said, straining to listen.

“It was him, the Doctor!” Rose shrilled impatiently. “Be quiet and listen. He just spoke. He quoted that Statue of Liberty thing.” She rolled her hand through the air, encouraging her memory. “Give me your yearning masses...?”

Mickey's expression was openly skeptical. “You heard the Doctor? Just now?”

The rushing in her ears subsided. She gave her head a tentative shake, tipping it to the side as the subtle sounds of the hallway returned to her. Hearing only the air conditioning running and distant machinery and voices, she turned this way and that, trying to pick up the signal again. Finally, her shoulders slumped. 

“It's gone. He's gone. But I swear, I heard him. Just as we were getting on the lift, I...” She gazed back along the empty hallway.

Mickey confirmed what her eyes were already telling her. “There's nobody here, Rose,” he said, soothingly. “Maybe it was a trick of position, a voice floating up the lift shaft. Could be someone on another floor?”

“No, it was right behind us. I know his voice. It was him.” 

She spun in a circle, frustrated by the lack of evidence supporting her claim. When she stopped, the hall continued to whirl and spin. The floor dipped to the right and she staggered, a hand flailing to the wall to steady herself. Dimly, she heard Mickey say her name, felt him gather her into his arms, but her attention was captured by the roundels on the walls. There were roundels on the wall. Where had they come from? And why was she suddenly so dizzy? She looked toward the lift but, instead of seeing it, she saw the interior of the TARDIS. The console room with its Time Rotor. The Doctor was there and a red-haired woman, Rose didn't recognize. She lunged forward, an exclamation of delight on her lips and plummeted into blackness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Once again, the first voice she heard on waking was her mother's. But this time she wasn't in bed. She opened her eyes and looked up at her family as they stood grouped around her. She was sitting in a chair at home. 

“Oh, Pete,” Jackie was saying, “Look at her...she's glowing.”

_Glowing?_

“You should have seen her before,” Mickey interjected. “She looked...radioactive. I don't know how I got her out of the building without anyone stopping us."

"And it just came over her?" her father asked. "No warning?"

"She said she heard the Doctor," Mickey said, causing Jackie to hiss an indrawn breath. "And then her eyes...they..." Mickey patted behind him for the arm of the sofa. Finding it, he collapsed onto it like his knees had given out. His tone turned reverent as he fumbled for words, "They were...they had this...fire inside. Like hot coals or the sun or...I don't know what. It made my skin crawl. She just stared right through me for about two seconds, and then...pop...gone...faded.” He squeaked, clutching at his throat. “I've seen a lot of strange things...but this...it was like there wasn't any Rose there. Just a Rose shape. Then, she came back and passed right out. It's got to be alien, am I right?”

“Silly,” Rose said. But nobody seemed to hear her. She struggled to get out of the chair, feeling suddenly claustrophobic, but her feet couldn't seem to find traction. She lifted her hand and saw that it had become almost transparent. “I must be dreaming.”

"Is she coming around? Rose, darling, can you hear me?" 

Her dad shook his head. Turning to Mickey, he asked, “What was she working on? Anything classified?”

“Translation of that first contact recording,” Mickey said. His eyes widened. “But she said she felt invisible. And another thing, she's been getting static from the aliens.”

“Trouble, you mean?” Jackie asked. “I don't want her mixing with the wrong sort, Pete. You promised me you'd keep an eye on her.”

Pete was doing more than keeping an eye on her, he was staring at her, squinting in concentration. He looked confused. His hand rose to pinch the bridge of his nose as if he were fighting a headache. Rose tried to hold his eye, but it was like he didn't want to see her. She looked at her mother and then Mickey but they didn't meet her eye either.

“Why are you all hovering over me?” she demanded crossly, “Acting like I can't hear a word you say?”

Jackie was the only one who responded. “Oh, sweetheart, you've come back. You gave us such a fright,” she declared, leaning over to smooth a few stray hairs from her daughter's brow. “Can you remember what happened?”

“Of course, I can,” Rose said. She pressed both hands into the chair arms and, as if the laws of physics were just enacted, she shot to her feet. She staggered and Mickey put his hand out to steady her. But her father seemed to be staring beyond her. “I was on the beach,” she began, but then seemed unsure. “No, wait...was that yesterday?”

“That was three weeks ago, sweetheart. You were back at work. Don't you remember?.”

For a second or two, she didn't. Then, she got a flash of a dream image. “I was...running down this corridor...at work?” She looked at Mickey. “Right. We were waiting for the lift. And I heard the Doctor.”

“Calling you again?”Jackie asked.

“No,” Rose murmured, shaking her head. “No. He was just talking to someone.” She glanced at her father, standing there staring into the fireplace. There wasn't even a fire burning. What could he find so fascinating? “Dad?” Jackie and Mickey looked questioningly from Rose to the unresponsive Pete. 

Jackie prompted him. “Pete? She's talking to you.”

“Who?” he asked.

“Your daughter, Rose,” Jackie said.

“From the womb?” Pete asked, chuckling as he wrapped an affectionate arm around his wife's shoulders. He kissed Jackie's temple lightly and added, “That's a fine name, Rose. But I was thinking we could name her after my grandmother, Marion Louise?”

“Pete?” Jackie exclaimed, ducking away from his embrace and waving her arm in an arc. “I'm talking about my Rose, right there.” Pete swept the room with a curious glance, but didn't even hesitate as his gaze glided by his adopted daughter. Eyes focusing on Mickey, he lifted his brows in inquiry. “What's she on about?”

“Uh-oh,” Mickey said.

“There's the understatement of the century,” Rose snarled at him. She stepped in front of her dad and waved at him frantically. “Can't you see me, Dad? Dad?” 

“Pete? Why don't you say something?” Jackie asked him. 

“There's no one there,” he told her, staring straight through Rose.

It soon became heartbreakingly apparent that Pete Tyler had forgotten her. It wasn't just that he couldn't see her. He could only hold her in his mind for a second or two. Mickey and Jackie explained who she was and what had happened, but within a few minutes, Pete had to be told again. Jake also seemed unable to remember her unless constantly prompted. It turned out the household staff and her coworkers at Torchwood had no recollection of her at all. 

She walked in and out of Torchwood setting off the sensors but never stopped for an identity check. Mickey ran several diagnostic tests on her but could find no anomalies. She simply didn't register with adults at first. Children still saw her, she learned and animals. She took comfort in petting the guard dogs at work and cuddling Martha's cat at home. Martha wondered why Mickey spent so much time talking to thin air. 

“I've told her it's a secret surveillance project. She thinks your on a stakeout somewhere. But she can't hear you.”

“I've vanished from their reality,” Rose told him “You and mum had places here to step into, but I never existed in this world. I don't think people believed in me. It's like the TARDIS cloaking device, I'm not invisible, I'm just not supposed to be here. So they don't see me.”

People started humoring Mickey and Jackie. They would patiently listen to the explanation about Rose's invisibility. They would nod and soothe and occasionally offer helpful suggestions. But within a few minutes they forgot about her again. Probably the forgetting was the only thing that kept Jackie out of a mental hospital, since Pete finally admitted that not only did he not see Rose any more, but also, as far as he knew there had never been a Rose Tyler. He remembered the Doctor bringing Mickey to his world, he remembered being reunited with Jackie, but he insisted the Doctor had been alone. There was no convincing him otherwise.

“I don't exist for him,” Rose told her mother as they sat side by side on the porch swing. “People don't want to see me.”

“They want to, honey, they just can't.”

“I mean...it's like...they look over me, through me, like I've got a chameleon circuit.”

“I don't know what that is,” Jackie remarked. “But Mickey is working on a way to make you visible again. We won't give up on you, I promise.”

But day after day, week after week, Mickey came home with no idea how to fix things. Rose stopped going to Torchwood when the sensors stopped beeping at her. But she bombarded Mickey with questions and ideas. She told him of the Gelth and how they'd been cast out of their proper dimension.

“They needed to find new bodies. Maybe I'm like them now.”

“Do you think we need to make you a new body? Like the cybermen?”

“I don't know. I'm not using dead people,” Rose said, even though she had more sympathy for the Gelth, now, that she was losing her place in reality. “All I know is I'm disappearing. I'm like the TARDIS. I can't function here. I'm just...dead. Maybe when I had the Vortex in me...it changed me somehow. Or maybe it was what the Doctor did to me.”

“What did he do? Exactly.”

Rose looked at him sitting across from her at the patio table. She liked being outside. The sun still felt warm on her back. The breeze still tugged at her hair. She ran the flat of her palm over the bumpy marbled surface of the tabletop, as she pondered how to answer Mickey's question. 

“I shouldn't go into this with you, but...it might help.” She took a deep breath and said, “The Doctor and I are connected. You know, how a human man joins with a woman?”

“Do I know how to shag? Yeah, I think I remember that,” Mickey said, grinning.

“Shut up,” Rose said, leaning across the small table to smack his shoulder. “I'm trying to tell you something personal...and important. Try to behave.”

It felt so good to make contact with him, that she scooted closer. For a second, she settled her hand on him, let it linger. Their eyes met and all she wanted was to do was shag him breathless. She remembered how good it used to feel and for a brief moment she wanted to do it again, to feel alive just for a little while. One last physical indulgence, would that be so bad? Yeah, it would. Especially, if Mickey forgot her, too. Every moment they had left needed to be spent on solving this problem. Reluctantly, she turned her head away.

“Sorry, babe, I'm listening,” Mickey said as she gave him a friendly pat and withdrew her hand. He propped his elbows on the table and gave her his complete attention.

Once she was certain he wasn't going to laugh at her, Rose went on. “The Doctor isn't like a man. He doesn't have...” she gestured vaguely at her lap. 

“You're kidding me,” Mickey exclaimed. “If I'd known that, I would have pitched my case a little differently.”

“Mickey?” 

“Sorry. Sorry. No equipment. You were saying?” he prompted, but he couldn't help smiling.

“He has equipment,” Rose informed him huffily. “But it's not like yours...and I'm not going into what it's like..” She sighed again. “Look? Maybe we should just forget about this,” she grumbled. “I don't know why I wanted to tell you.”

“Because you're fading away,” Mickey said, reaching out a hand and wrapping his fingers around hers. “And we're friends and I'm trying to help. Seriously, Rose. You know, I'm working on this all the time.”

She did know that. He was as frantic as her mother. Gripping his hand hard, she stared into the tree branches overhead for a moment or two, eyes glistening with unshed tears. Sucking in a breath, she held it for a long ten count, and then exhaled. Her line of sight dropped, until she was gazing into his warm, brown eyes. 

“Yeah,” she breathed. “You're my hero. So...the Doctor is alien. A Time Lord. He looks like us, but he's not like us. His people are telepathic, for one thing. That's how they bond with a TARDIS. And it's also how they...bond with each other. When two of them get together, they have...”

“Mind sex,” Mickey crowed. “I've heard about that. Some of the guys at Torchwood say there are these kinky aliens who suck out your brains while you're...”

“All right,” Rose interrupted testily. “It's not about sucking brains. And it's not about being kinky...it's...beautiful. He's got these..." She wondered how to explain. "Well, they're called cnidocysts. They're a sort of specialized cell in his skin, on his arms and chest and tongue. They bristle like a cactus...or no,” drawing her teeth along her lower lip, she frowned as she searched for the right comparison, “more like a jellyfish, yeah? These little harpoons inject a drug into me..."

"A drug?" Mickey yelped, obviously appalled by this idea.

"To make me more...receptive. Not like...against my will, or anything. More like...ready for him. When he was feeling...interested. They would...” She used stiff fingers to poke at her arm as she said, “penetrate. So, we could...” Again, she indicated her lap. 

To his credit, Mickey didn't so much as crack a smile. “Down there?” he asked in a small voice, squirming a bit at the thought of stingers or needles near his sensitive manhood.

“All over,” she corrected. “It helped to link our nervous systems. Once we were...joined...I could feel what he felt...and he could feel what I felt. It was like we had one body, one...soul. Everything we did together was echoed and magnified. You have no idea...”

By the look on his face, Mickey was just as glad he couldn't imagine what she was describing in greater detail. Time Lord sex still sounded alarmingly alien to him. But he was too kind to share his disgust in the face of Rose's obvious distress. Instead, he fell back on instinct and made a joke. “So, once you've gone Time Lord there's no going back?”

Rose laughed with him. “I guess not. But that's not why I'm telling you all this is...what if doing that...linking to the Doctor? Changed me? What if this is happening because of my connection to him. He could be drawing me back to him somehow. Or maybe...I don't know...maybe I'm just dying because we're apart.”

“You're not dying,” Mickey insisted. “We'll figure this out.”

Rose knew he would try, but more and more each passing day, her situation seemed hopeless. “If only the Doctor were here.”

It was her constant lament as she wandered through the world leaving less and less of an impression on it. She lived alone, now. People moved around her like shadows, ghosts. She still felt real, solid, still had the urge to eat and use the loo. She still slept and amused herself with books and exploring. But nobody noticed her on her long rambles. Even when she threw a tantrum and broke windows or vases, it didn't seem to bother anyone. After a time she found she couldn't break things. And she started to walk right through walls. She tried to avoid doing that, because it gave her the chills. Eventually, only Jackie remembered her. And she knew one day that connection would be lost, too. Losing Mickey sent her into a dark depression. She considered leaving the house, then, before she lost her mother, but she couldn't bring herself to let go of her last human contact.

So, she tarried, until one morning she woke to singing and a room stripped of all remaining signs of her. Her music and make-up and clothing were all gone. Glancing down at herself, she saw she was wearing a black leather jacket, pink arm warmers and jeans. The same clothes she'd been wearing on the beach in Norway. Where I died, she thought, and realized for the first time that she'd begun to think of herself as a ghost. To offset the rush of despair that accompanied that thought, she turned her mind to her theories. She mulled over possible explanations for her predicament as she sat on her bed, watching Carmen, the housekeeper, take down her curtains and put up ones with pink bears and bows on them. 

What if the Doctor was calling her home? Reaching out to her like he used to do in his sleep? Wandering this world was very much like wandering the halls of the TARDIS at night. She felt as helpless and lonely. And when she slept, she dreamed of the TARDIS walls shifting around her.

Her mother came in with a bundle in her arms and shopping bags hanging from her wrists. “Good, once the curtains are up, I can see about having someone cart all this furniture away.” Focused on Carmen, Jackie didn't look at Rose, but that wasn't particularly alarming. Sometimes she wouldn't risk a conversation when there were other people in the room. “I've got the interior design people coming this afternoon.”

“Morning, Mum,” Rose called. “Been shopping?”

“I've found the dearest blanket,” Jackie went on, without even glancing toward Rose. “Wait, I'll show you.” She settled her packages on the dresser and rummaged in the shopping bags until she found what she was searching for. 

“Mum? Can you hear me? Just nod or wink or whatever.”

“Look? It's covered with roses. Because I was thinking, Rose, for a name. Maybe Marion in the middle. Pete is so set on Marion, but I like the name Rose. Rose Marion Tyler, what do you think?”

Rose screamed. “Mum? Mommy?”

Tears streamed down her face as she shouted in her mother's ear. She tried to smash the mirror, pummel the walls, kick the furniture. But nothing she did mattered. The mirror mended itself. Every sound she made seemed designed for her ears only. Everyone she loved had forgotten about her. They simply moved on with their new lives, in their new world. She couldn't bear it. It was worse than death. No one mourned her passing. No one remembered her at all.

She couldn't stand to watch them laughing and eating and sharing family moments. They never even mentioned her. The baby had usurped her name and her place in their lives. Finally, unable to tolerate the pain she broke and ran. Leaving her family and her own memories behind, she ran and ran until she needed to stop for breath. How odd it was to feel her heart beating, to gasp for air when she surely had no lungs, no substance. 

“Look at me,” she snarled at strangers, flailing her arms in front of them. “Talk to me. Someone.” She punched at people. Mooned them. Insulted them. Grimaced in their faces. She felt herself going mad, losing her grip on reality, and wondered if it would matter if she did. Reality had lost its grip on her. Did she have a mind to lose? How would her madness impact the world? 

Desperate for some validation of her existence, she sought out mediums and soothsayers. But none of the fakirs with shingles in shop windows showed the slightest interest in her haunting them. They went on laying out tarot cards and gazing into crystals oblivious to her mugging and shouting. She'd hoped to find someone like Gweneth. But true psychics were rare it seemed. Disillusioned with them, she gave up hope. Then, one day, as she paused outside a coffee shop, a girl glanced up from her steaming mug and made eye contact. Rose paused, a tingle of shock passing through her. She looked over her shoulder, certain the girl must be focused on someone else. But there was nobody close. Rose waved and the girl, after glancing around self-consciously, twiddled her fingers in reply.

“Oh, thank God,” Rose exclaimed, as she dashed into the cafe, forgetting, in her haste, to use the door “You can see me! Can you see me?” The girl gave the tiniest of nods. “You can hear what I'm saying?” The girl, a faded slip of a thing with pinkish blond hair and milky blue eyes, tapped her pen against her open journal. She'd been writing in it when Rose had first seen her. Rose glanced down at the page. 

\--Can't talk.—the girl had written. 

“People would think you were crazy, yeah?”

The pen scrawled again. --Can you write?--

“I don't think so,” Rose said. “I can't touch things anymore.”

\--Try-- the girl wrote.--Use my hand.--

It was hard to use another person's hand. It took all of Rose's concentration but she managed to settle her arm over the girl's and move the pen across the page. 

\--My name is Rose Tyler—Rose wrote and then paused to think of what she wanted to say to this stranger in a coffee shop. Should she try again to reach Mickey or her Mum? Would they listen? No, she realized. They were part of whatever was happening here. Every impact she made on this world faded into nothing. If these were her last words, she should make them count.. Focusing her attention, she began to write rapidly.

\--This is the story of Torchwood. The last story I'll ever tell.-- She settled into a rhythm. --Planet Earth. This is where I was born and this is where I died. For the first nineteen years of my life nothing happened, nothing at all. Not ever. And then I met a man called The Doctor...--

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The girl, whose name she learned was Mary Alice Elder, proved an attentive listener. She had been born mute, but was compensated for the loss of her voice with the ability to see beyond what she called _the black veil._ She worked as a postal clerk and rented a room in Chelsea. Rose followed her home and, having nowhere else to go, haunted the place. Mary Alice didn't seem to mind the company. They watched telly and played guessing games on paper. Rose found she could talk easily to Mary Alice and they chatted away about all sorts of things. 

“Sometimes the dead come out from behind the veil,” Mary Alice explained via her ever present notepad. “The Cybermen went into it. They followed a round ship.”

“The orb ship. There were Daleks inside. Metal monsters.”

“I've seen a few monsters,” Mary Alice told her. “They come out of the black veil, too.”

“We call it the Void,” Rose told her. “But some people call it Hell or the Howling.”

“Sometimes the undead bleed through, beings from other worlds. You're not like them. You glow.”

“Mickey said that, too. I can't see it,” Rose said, holding out her hand to study it. It looked like her hand, ordinary, pink skin and short nails. “Do you think it's my soul glowing? Or maybe the light I'm supposed to follow?”

“I've never seen that light,” Mary Alice scribbled. “Only the black veil and white or silvery ghosts. And you. You're all gold and shiny.”

“I met a werewolf once,” Rose mused, “back when I was alive. And he told me I burned like the sun.”

“Could be there's a part of you alive somewhere,” Mary Alice wrote. “Once, I met a spirit who had left his body because it was very sick. In a coma.”

“Like _Life on Mars_ ,” Rose said, nodding. She'd watched the show after her death, perched on the edge of Mary Alice's bed. She was sitting in the same position, now, looking over the girl's shoulder to read her responses. 

“Well...you are named Tyler,” Mary Alice wrote, laughing soundlessly. Then, she sobered and added, “Maybe I've made you up. Maybe I'm really just crazy.”

“You aren't crazy,” Rose told her. “You're special. You have a gift. And you're very important to me.”

“Do you think...could you have been in some sort of accident?”

“It's possible, I suppose. At Torchwood? Lots of strange stuff going on there. Just my luck, I get knocked out of my body but not into an earlier decade, yeah? I could stand to dress in flares and leather.” She lay back on the bed, stretching languidly, trying to conjure a greater sense of self, to have sinew and muscles. “I don't know though, I can't help thinking this is about the Doctor, somehow. I only wish,” she sighed, “I wish he could help me.”

“Maybe he can?” Mary Alice scrawled in big letters. “Have you tried reaching out to him?”

“Every day,” Rose said. “Every hour. Just like clockwork. Could be he has to be thinking about me at the same time. He never mentions people, once we've gone. I thought I would be different...we were so close...but maybe he just went on without me...same old life, he said.”

“You love him?”

“Always. Forever,” Rose sighed. “And that's funny, now, because I don't feel anything anymore.” 

It was true. She'd stopped feeling things. Just as she'd stopped using the loo and breathing. She no longer shuddered from the cold; no longer felt lonely. When first denied food, she'd been ravenously hungry. But the need for food and warmth left her one day, sighing off without fanfare. She didn't notice the desire passing away until she realized she hadn't eaten for a week or more. The realization left her gripped by an unholy panic. She was losing herself and knew it. Her body had dissolved to the point where it had no physical urges, no surging hormones to interpret as feelings. She tried to be afraid, but without blood and breath to sustain it fear turned out to be nothing more than a bad habit. She let it go and it vanished. After a time, she forgot to be sad about her losses. She no longer wailed for her mother, no longer prayed for rescue. She simply existed. 

The world turned under her. Every morning she crossed the ocean to America. Every evening she returned to Mary Alice's flat. Mary Alice began to lose touch with her, too. But Rose had nowhere else to go. She'd forgotten most of what it meant to be flesh and bone, remembering only her love. When even her love took abstract shape, she decided to follow the one thing she had left, the light in the back of her mind. Rose wandered aimlessly, longing to be whole again, but she couldn't put a name to the thing she needed. She had no tongue for words. No chemical mind to summon memories. At a loss, she let the longing guide her footsteps. It steered her across land and sea to a shoreline in Norway. 

There, facing Bad Wolf Bay, she put down roots on a rocky outcropping. The wind whipped her hair if she imagined it could. If she imagined her body, she wore the same clothes he'd last seen her wearing. He would find her waiting if he ever returned. But she was no longer sure he would come. Probably he had forgotten her, too. She wasn't sure if she would feel anything if he came back for her anyway. She couldn't feel the breeze on her skin no matter how vividly she tried to imagine it. A lonely sentinel looking out to sea, she waited and watched the shifting tides and the changing sky until the tide and the sky disappeared.

She was gone...into the dark...

....dark....dark...

....howling dark...

....nothing...not even memories...

....nothing...

....something...

....bright...glowing...

....light....so very bright against the emptiness....a door....

....and a questing...sweeping...something...

....a question...

....not a voice...but a question...a ping at the back of her mind...

....she had a mind...and her mind had a back...and a front...and a middle...

...and a sense of self...

....I am! I exist!

The question continued to bounce off her...on a loop...pinging against her returning awareness... 

\---ROSE?---ROSE?---ROSE?---

“HERE!” She screamed as soon as she realized she could. “HEAR! Hear me...I am...Rose, that's me. I am Rose.”

The light responded, not the Doctor but the wolf in the dark. It focused on her with its glowing eye, shuffling through her memories before it hooked into her. There was a painful tug on her consciousness, an insistent pulling, taut and demanding as a fisherman's line. And she started to sense...movement. She was moving toward something...out of the void...the golden light expanded, engulfing her. And then, like a landed bass, she flailed into another reality, a reality full of noise and shapes and meaning.

She seemed to be lying on a smooth, slightly curved floor. There was something organic about her surroundings, the floor felt alive under her hand. The rounded space had the comforting warmth of a womb. She could even feel a pulse, beating through her. Not her pulse, but the heartbeat of a cybernetic mother, this living machine. She wondered about reincarnation, thinking she might be reborn, as she stared up at the confused tangle of clear tubing and glowing metal above her. Visually tracing the curve of a creamy arch, she saw it flowed through a heavy iron grating. Looking to the right, she saw a curving stair made of the same type of iron. A round column was rising and falling into her sacred space and there was a grinding roar all around her. She recognized the sound.

“It's the TARDIS,” she said, startled to hear her own voice echoing through the room. Then, she realized she hadn't spoken--couldn't speak. She still had no breath or tongue. The impression of sound came, not from her mouth but from the walls. They pulsed with color as she formed thoughts and somehow the color became sound for her.

She returned her attention to the door in her head, focusing on it as she formulated a question. "Where am I?"

To her utter amazement, the walls answered her. Not in words, but in images and flashing binary codes. They fired a flurry of information into her mind. Dreamlike impressions flowed trough the door in her soul and became a concept.

\---Home---

She was home, on the TARDIS. Yet, it was, also, inside her somehow, explaining things. It told her it had brought her here for the Doctor. Because she'd gone missing. Because it needed her to complete the circuit with him. They would become whole again. She couldn't be separate from the whole. She was part of the whole, they belonged together, the three of them. 

\---You are the interface---the TARDIS told her, gently insistent---No other plug-in is possible for this system, therefore you must...you will...reintegrate--- 

END THIS PART


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose has returned to her proper universe, but without her proper body. The TARDIS dragged her back across the Void by using their "Bad Wolf" connection, but could only create a data stream of a person. Also, we get some Donna in this one, I'd forgotten about that. I think she might be a little rough around the edges, being from Runaway Bride, but...she's still fun.

_Reintegrate? What do you mean reintegrate?_ Rose asked, but the TARDIS refused to answer her. After what seemed like a reasonable period of waiting, she tried another question. _Is it like...regenerating? Is it... Time Lord...ish?_

She stared expectantly upwards at the glowing rotor until her neck stiffened. As she lowered her chin, her neck muscles twinged. Pain, the return of physical sensation alarmed her for a moment. Alarm and pain subsided and, after a bit of thought, she turned optimistic. Surely any sort of feeling was a hopeful sign. Held before her, her arms and hands remained transparent. But she could feel her fingers pressing into flesh as she rubbed them along the base of her skull. Was this all part of remembering who she was? She asked the walls, but the TARDIS remained stubbornly mute. Affronted by the silent treatment, Rose groused as she paced. 

_You can't keep me here,_ she told the pulsing rotor overhead. _I could find the Doctor. Sort this out on my own._

She strode confidently toward the nearest wall, intent on phasing through it like a phantom, but slammed into it. 

“Ow!” she said, one hand going to her injured brow. “That hurt.” And then, she exclaimed in delight, “Hey! I can talk! Can you hear me?”

The humming undertone of machinery burbled, almost like an indulgent laugh. The TARDIS could hear her it seemed and was amused. It assured her via the pulsing, crawling data lines that it was doing its best to reintegrate her. The effort had caused quite a power drain on other systems. To Rose's chagrin, the entire data stream carried a motherly admonishment about childish impatience. Time was nothing. It was irrelevant to them. She, Rose, should remember that and wait. All things pass. All things end.

“Yes, all right,” Rose sighed. “I'll try to be patient. I am grateful to you for everything, but I want to see the Doctor. Is he here? Does he know what's happening to me? Can I talk to him?”

The rotor stuttered to a pause and its golden glow flooded the room. Each little packet of light held bundled data, a massive download of information. Rose howled and clutched her head as the first wave crashed into her frontal lobe. The Heart of the TARDIS looked into her, searching for the portal it had previously installed. As it plugged in, Rose collapsed in a writhing heap, the romance of solid contact with the floor completely lost on her. Everything hurt for a nanosecond But the mental onslaught of alien gibberish overrode her own synaptic information, elbowing aside her pain. She might have been lit on fire without noticing. As it was, her brain boiled, but luckily it did not leak from her ears or forgo its grip on sanity. 

There simply wasn't time to go mad. The download happened in an instant and ended before Rose could do more than squirm like a nightcrawler frying under a magnified sunbeam. When it was over, she lay still, whimpering and cringing, arms crossed over her head. Expecting another barrage to begin at any moment, she held her defensive pose, struggling to regain her composure. Her mind churned in an effort to catch up with events and make sense of anything beyond blind panic. Staring straight ahead, she gasped in air. She would have marveled over her panting, but found she did not need to wonder about it. She understood what was happening to her, now—the reintegration. She understood everything, but couldn't begin to relate to the knowledge. Her mind had just been expanded like a water balloon under a gushing tap. It was full to the bursting point, overwhelmed with knowing. And yet, there was so much more to learn...so much more water in the cosmic seas. She'd held it all once. She'd been the sea, then, the Bad Wolf, a stranger to her very human insignificance. But not this time. This time Rose remained human...small, only a part of the greater whole.

The Doctor was not on board. She knew this. 

The mechanized interface, the police box, had fallen from a ship in orbit above the earth. The Doctor was still there, beyond the reach of the TARDIS. Protocol had taken them to the nearest gravity well. There they would wait. Rose knew there was no protocol for rescuing the Doctor from whatever trouble he was in at the moment. She did not need to ask about this, it was part of the download. She also knew there was a longstanding estrangement between the Doctor and his ship. The old interface was mechanical in nature and inadequate to their needs. It could be pirated by an enemy and used against the Doctor, or lost or dismantled. It could not save him. The TARDIS and the Doctor required an organic interface, one with initiative and loyalty. Rose must reintegrate. 

“Yeah, I've got that part,” she croaked, massaging her temple with tentative fingers. “I'm reintegrating. I hope you know that none of this makes sense to me. Sticking it in my head doesn't help. But no more answers for a bit, I think. Let it be. God! I feel gutted!” 

She wanted to retch, to purge herself of the knowing. Or sleep and escape it. But she could do neither it seemed. So, she lay quietly on the floor and waited. After a time, hours perhaps—or weeks or months —she had no idea how long, the wall in front of her opened and she found herself staring down a lighted passageway. She sat up and glanced around, not trusting the offer of escape. 

“Now what?” she asked. 

Despite the knowing, Rose had no idea what was expected of her. But when nothing came through the open door, she finally gathered her courage and approached it. Poking a finger into the space beyond, she found it was truly a way out. She edged over the threshold, escaping her womb-like home.

As soon as she entered the hallway, reality shifted, cutting off her retreat. Spinning about, Rose felt a surge of abject fear. 

“Fear is a good thing,” she reminded herself. “It means I'm still human. A ghost maybe, but still Dame Rose of the Powell Estates, yeah.” She stood taller, shoulders back, chin jutting forward. 

The TARDIS nudged her with a wall, urging her to move. 

"Yes, all right. Just getting my bearings." 

She set off down the hall with a purposeful stride. Ahead of her, the floor morphed into stairs. The world seemed to wobble on its axis and Rose experienced a distinct, and blessedly familiar, sensation of disorientation. 

“P.T.S.D.,” she cried, marveling at the thrill she got over what had once been so annoying to her. “He's asleep.”

 _Yes._ the TARDIS confirmed. 

“Oh, so you're talking to me again,” Rose smirked. From the knowing, she suddenly realized something else, “He hasn't been sleeping, has he? Not since I went away.”

_No. He was alone._

“In bed?” Rose asked, but immediately rejected that answer as coming from her jealous, all too human, heart. “No, you mean...in his head. Right. So, he couldn't sleep. Only now I am here.”

_You are here. We are no longer alone._

Grinning, Rose stretched a out her hand to trail her fingers along the wall as she walked. “You're a good old TARDIS, aren't you?” she said affectionately. 

The walls purred as they pulsed agreement. Rose broke into a jog, eager to be reunited with the Doctor. As she closed in on his position, she noticed a change in the data bursts crawling through the air. Distinct images began to appear before her. She paused to study one of the slow swirls of color and got a snippet of sound as well. The Doctor's voice and the relentless pounding of drums came to her, but fragmented, as if along a bad wireless connection. 

_His dreams._ the TARDIS told her. 

Rose longed to linger over these glimpses into the Doctor's unguarded subconscious, but the TARDIS harried her, hurrying her along. Moving quickly, Rose caught only disturbing flickers of fire and ice, bodies falling into solar furnaces, terror and pain, and then there were quite suddenly...women. Beautiful women and plain ones. He was kissing them, lying with them. He'd fathered children. This wasn't the distant past she was seeing. She could tell by the clarity of the memories that all of this had happened since she'd gone. 

“How long has it been?” she asked. “How long have I been away?” The TARDIS could not tell her. Time had no significance to the timeless Heart. “That explains a lot about your guidance systems,” Rose grumbled. “Ironic, yeah?”

Oh, yes, her human feelings were back. She couldn't avoid confronting the emotional turmoil at the center of her being. All she wanted to do was sit down and cry. She was hurt, angry, betrayed—jealous. Her husband had sampled the wares of all of these women. Didn't she mean anything to him?

“Is that Martha Jones?” she declared loudly, slamming to a halt. 

The walls kept moving. They closed in on her. But when she refused to be herded another step, the walls gave up on pushing and dissolved. Looking around, Rose found she was standing in the library, the Doctor curled up at her feet. 

Partially because she'd been expecting to find him, but mostly because she was so very upset, Rose addressed his snoozing form petulantly rather than lovingly, “You snogged Martha Jones? What is she--my universal replacement? The powers that be just drop her into whatever space I vacate? Here ,” she gestured wildly, “have a new girlfriend? Is there some law that says everyone who dates me, has to date her straight after?”

“It was a genetic transfer,” said a testy voice behind her. Rose gave a little shriek and spun about to face what could only be an apparition of the Doctor slouching against a bookshelf. “There was nothing remotely date-like or snoggish about it. And surely, I don't have to explain that to my own subconscious. Which begs the question: Who the hell are you?”

It had to be some sort of illusion, because the Doctor was still fast asleep on the floor behind her. She glanced back at him to make sure before saying, “You can't be in two places at the same time.”

“Oh, can't I?”

The knowing told her he could. “Yes! All right,” she conceded. “I suppose you can. Strictly speaking. If this bit I'm talking to is an astral projection onto my divergent plane of existence, yeah?” Rose scowled, pressing the heel of her palm to her brow as she scrunched her eyes closed. “Oh, I wish I would stop thinking things like that.” Blowing out a cleansing exhale, she stole a squinting glance at him. “So...you're not real. You're a...a subconscious Doctor. His dream self. Am I right?”

“Right in one. Hence the outfit,” he said, glancing down to indicate his rather odd garments. He was wearing lederhosen, argyle socks and a velvet smoking jacket. 

“Yes,” Rose said, suppressing a smirk. “It is very fetching.”

“And you are...?” He held up a finger as she opened her mouth to reply. “No...no, no, no...No! Don't tell me. Let me guess. A plasma entity? Hitching a ride in our ion engines?” Rose shook her head. “No? A refugee from the Howling? Some formless Gelth seeking material gratification? No...?” He chewed on his lower lip. “A remnant of awareness from an alternative reality?” 

“You're getting warmer,” Rose said. “I'm Ro...”

The Doctor wasn't listening. He snapped his fingers and, pointing one at her, ventured another guess, “A future self? Sent here to warn me of impending doom?” His face reflected amazement over this idea. “Oh, that's Freudian, that is. If I may use the term while wearing short trousers. Imagine regenerating into the likeness of...her.”

“You imagine. I'm trying to forget you thought of that. A future self? Do I look like a Doctor to you?” Rose had spread both hands wide, posing to give him a better view, before remembering he could look like anyone. “Wait! Can you be a woman?”

“It would be a change,” he allowed, scratching the behind an ear. “Although,” he drawled with a bit of a shrug, “I might find I enjoyed it. Course, I'd never be able to shower in peace.” Rose cocked a brow at him. “Well, come on, be fair, there is no denying showers would certainly take a lot longer.” She lifted her other brow and crossed her arms. “Don't give me that look. You have no idea. The hair alone takes hours and hours. And she shaved everywhere. Under her arms, even. I mean, honestly, under her arms! And she painted her toenails. Is that required? Would I have to carry on painting them? Then there are the extra bits...a sort of two for one...and,” his face fell into dismayed lines as a new thought occurred to him, “Do you think I'd get hormones? I don't fancy coming down with hormones. I'm pretty sure I'm allergic. I know whenever my female companions go shopping for feminine hygiene products, I start sneezing and....”

“I'm not your future self,” Rose interrupted. She heaved a huge sigh, shaking her head at the thought. “Honestly, how disturbing is that idea?”

“Change is always disturbing. The universe resists it. Entropy, you know. I expect I would get used to looking like...that, but the psychological pain of it would be trying, of course. It would be much worse than wearing her clothing.”

“Wearing my...? You've...? Oh, the mourning rituals. How...uh...” She took a breath. “I guess the word I want is sweet, yeah?” She tried her best to block out the immediate TARDIS-generated image of the Doctor wearing her baby doll pajamas.

“You needn't take that tone. Nothing wrong with it,” he sniffed. He waved away any suggestion of impropriety. “Traditional on my planet. Of course, we rather tend to the one-size-fits-most robes. Some of her clothing was a tight fit on this body.” He patted his belly. “Luckily, I'm weasel-ish. Weasel-like.”

“Weasel-esque,” Rose said, giggling. “And really more of an otter, remember?”

He was staring at her with a sort of bemused wonder. His lips formed her name, but when she put out a hand to him, he gave a violent start and again demanded, “Who are you?”

Because he knew, now, she didn't bother to tell him. “You didn't shave your head,” she said, knowing that was part of the mourning ritual as well.

“Would she have wanted me to?” he asked. “She was rather fond of my hair.”

The observation brought a smile to her lips, and the last traces of her anger evaporated. She shifted to look down at the real Doctor, still sleeping. “I am fond of it,” she said softly. Kneeling beside him, she stroked along his cheek and through his hair. Her ghostly fingers left no impression on reality. His locks remained completely undisturbed. “I wish I could touch you, hold you, again,” she whispered.

Leaning closer, she brushed her lips over his. She could feel the warmth of his mouth and the stir of his breath against her cheek as he mumbled, “Astrid?” in his sleep.

“Astrid?” Rose growled, forgetting in her ire that questioning could bring an immediate answer. 

The knowing lacerated her. It knifed through her chest as his dream bombarded her with sensual memories of a blond waitress. Rose threw herself backward, desperate to escape these images. 

“Oh, God, get her out of my head,” she whimpered, crawling away from his memories. She turned her fury on his astral projection. “What do you mean going about kissing every single woman you run across?”

“What? What did you...?” the astral Doctor snarled, clearly overwrought. His face screwed up into an ugly sneer as, utterly outraged, he spat accusations at her.“How dare you question...act so...? See here, you...you...whatever you are, you can't be jealous. You're not Rose Tyler. Stop pretending you are.”

As he mentioned her name, Rose saw her own image replace every one of the women in his dreams. She saw herself in the waitress, in the woman with his children, even in Martha Jones. It was her he drew into his arms, over and over again. There was never anybody else.

“Rose?” the Doctor at her feet shouted, jerking awake. 

The forlorn hope, the almost whimpering appeal, in his voice acted like a sobering splash of cold water down her spine. He needed her. She turned to comfort him, instinctively reaching for his outstretched hand, all jealously forgotten. But even as he spoke her name, the room went black for Rose. In the middle of scrambling toward the Doctor, she lost him and her sense of herself. She became disoriented as the lights went out and very afraid, waiting to feel something, anything. It was like she'd fallen back into the void. Sensation and light returned in a brilliant flash. The bright golden glow showed she was back in the womb. 

_He is awake._ the TARDIS told her by way of explanation.

“No! No! No!” Rose raged, pounding the floor with her fist. Surging to her feet, she hurled herself at the unyielding walls. “Let me back,” she screamed. “Let me see him. He needs me.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Did you see their faces?” Donna crowed as she and the Doctor half-ran, half-fell through the TARDIS outer doors. They clutched at one another like drunkards staggering home from the pub and propped each other up as they gave in to helpless laughter. 

“I know,” he managed to gasp while slapping her shoulder. “Oh, Donna! When you launched into that whole bit about random trajectories, I thought I would burst trying to keep a straight face. I, quiet literally, have a stitch in my side.”

“I was rather brilliant, wasn't I?” Donna said with a pleased smirk. 

Gripping her by the elbows, the Doctor held her eye squarely as he gleefully assured her, “You were smashing!” 

A blush mounted her cheeks, but before she could think of some glib response to this unexpected praise, he'd spun away from her. He rarely stood still. And today was no exception. He continued to twirl through a few more turns, arms wide, until he arrived at the TARDIS console. There he went on with his recap of the events of the day. 

“Mind you, I did get lucky with the expiration date on those pears,” he said, stripping off his duster to reveal his blue suit. “If we'd gone with something fresher, the fizz wouldn't have been nearly as spectacular. And, the pitch is all in the wrist, of course. I've always had excellent hand-eye coordination,” he added with a smug lift of his chin.

“I have noticed that,” Donna admitted, which was as close as she ever came to complimenting him.

He winked at her as he heaved his coat in a one-handed toss toward a distant y-strut. The heavy garment flapped through the air like dodo bird trying to get altitude, but it landed gracefully enough, draping over the beam. Before it had completed its flight, the Doctor had returned his attention to his work. He danced from one set of controls to another, slapping levers and pushing buttons and generally giving a good impression of a man full of confidence and good cheer as he programmed their launch sequence.

“What's filled you with snap, crackle and pop today?” Donna asked as she made her way to the room's single chair. Taking her place in it, she began cinching a seatbelt.

“Life, Donna,” he cried, assuming a spread-eagle stance for a second. “What's not to love about it?”

“Last week you said it stank.”

“Last week we were in a sewage treatment plant,” he reminded her, folding out of his dramatic pose, “hip deep in offal. And I hadn't had a good night's sleep in...oh...thirty years?”

“You got some sleep? I didn't think you slept.”

“I don't. As a rule. Not generally. It's very rare. But just last night, I drift off into the dreamless. Or, rather, dream-filled.” He beamed at her as he went back to work. “I had the most amazing dream last night.”

“Was it the one where you win a hundred-million pounds?” Donna asked. “I love that dream.”

“It was...well...” he closed his lips firmly over what he'd been about to say and ran a nervous hand through his hair. After a brief embarrassed pause, he peeped, “It was personal.”

Donna strained forward in her seat. “ _You_ had a sex dream?” She didn't sound like she thought it was possible.

“What? No,” he said too quickly. Then, noting her smirk, he took offense. “Not that I couldn't have had one.” He sniffed archly. “I could very well have had that sort of dream, if I'd wanted to, if it happened to be mating season, for example...or...”

“Martian sex dreams? Fascinating,” Donna said, losing interest. “Bet there are tentacles involved.”

“What it is with you people and tentacles?” the Doctor asked, angrily snapping toggle switches. “Nobody has tentacles. Or...rather, nobody you would know. Because, obviously, truthfully, some do...certain species do,” he conceded with a bobble-headed waggle of his noggin. “The Baximilax Worms of Baximilia Prospus, for example, but,” he held up a finger to stress his next remark, “the salient point is the odds are very much against anything with tentacles seeking out a human mate. Baximilax Worms would hardly be interested in having sex with your species. Much more likely to spit acid in your eye than buy you a fancy dinner for two and suggest a moonlit stroll.”

“Is that your idea of human mating rituals, then?” Donna said. “Dinner and a walk?”

“You know what? Forget I mentioned my dream.” He sulked as he returned to his prodding of various buttons and spinning of assorted wheels on the TARDIS controls. “I should have expected you to go off on some sexual tangent. You have a one track mind when it comes to relationships. Here I am trying to tell you the universe is our oyster, half-shelled with hollandaise sauce, I might add. Or...no, Bearnaise,” he corrected himself. He squinted in consternation, scowling across the room at her. “What's the red one with hot peppers?”

“Salsa?” Donna guessed.

“No. Is it?” He thought this over for about a millisecond. “No. It's Tabasco, I think. Yes. Just a dash of Tabasco...and a spritz of lime. Splash of olive oil for extra lubrication. Oh, yes!” He crowed, stabbing an arm toward the ceiling as if he were brandishing a sword. “That's our oyster. And you...” he whirled on her, “you, Donna Elizabeth Noble, are insulting me and my romantic notions and my...my...genitalia.” 

After passing a conjurer's gesture over his trouser zip, he turned his back on her. He released the TARDIS handbrake with particularly theatrical verve. 

Donna braced for the launch and shouted over the engine grind. “Never could stomach shellfish. Oysters? Gah! They're slimy and gritty at the same time.” She grimaced as she closed her eyes, responding to the though of shellfish as much as to the more immediate prospect of losing her breakfast as she was thrown from her chair. 

“You should try tree slugs,” the Doctor yelled back at her. He had a tight grip on the edge of the console as they launched, but once the TARDIS entered the Vortex he let go.

“Tree slugs?”

“They're delicious. Slimy, of course, but not so much grit. No sand. Or pearls. Obviously, living up a tree,” he explained with a conceding tip of his head. He tapped an inquiry out on a keyboard and the ship shuddered gently. Frowning, he scuttled to his right for a quick peek at the monitor. His wrinkled brow smoothed when he saw the read outs and he happily declared, “Would you look at that? We're just where we should be. And listen,” he cocked his head, smiling bemusedly. “Do you hear that?”

After listening for a moment, Donna said, “I don't hear anything but that desperate old engine. Are you sure this thing is spaceworthy?”

“Of course she's spaceworthy,” he huffed, glaring at his companion before morphing again into a pinball of kinetic energy. “Spaceworthy and purring like a contented Fulliop. All is calm. All is bright. The TARDIS is responsive again. She hasn't been this attentive since...” 

A new idea struck him mute mid-sentence and he stilled, index finger poised above the egg-whisk he used to align the photon sails. His tongue tip curled to the roof of his open mouth during the breathless pause and his gaze drifted to meet Donna's, but she knew he wasn't aware of her. She could see the wheels turning in his mind through the clear windows of his staring eyes. The air of expectation around him, held her spellbound for a moment. 

Then, the spell failed. As if someone had thrown a breaker on his life, he burst into motion again. The soles of his trainers squeaked on the iron grating underfoot as he darted around to the far side of the time rotor. Donna had to tilt in her seat to watch him work. His fingers danced over the controls, keeping time with some frantic music in his head. Whatever pinprick of memory had momentarily threatened to deflate his happy bubble obviously no longer troubled him. He hummed a jaunty tune as he worked and smiled sweetly when Donna asked him where they were going.

“Shopping,” he replied to her delight.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It took a while for Rose to get over her anger and disappointment. It helped to learn that the TARDIS, too, was disappointed. Despite every effort, it had failed to reintegrate her. It could only give her limited access to the Doctor's world via his subconscious mind. Rose lived, yes. And when she was near the pulsing, organic heart of the TARDIS, she had substance. But interacting with the Doctor, even in his dreams, put a tremendous strain on all of the ship's systems. Rose's true form remained more gaseous than solid. She did have parameters, a physical body of sorts, but it wasn't able to be heard or seen or touched by ephemeral entities like Time Lords. Sensed, perhaps, the TARDIS told her.

_He knows you are here._

“He knows something is here, you mean,” Rose corrected, dejectedly. “He knows something is wrong. I can feel him questioning it.”

 _He will discover what it is. Fix it._ the TARDIS assured her. _He is the Doctor. That is what he does._

Rose accepted this. He was very good at fixing things, her Doctor, worrying away at problems until they crumbled into dust. He might misconstrue the details, at first. He often got in his own way. But he'd figure it all out eventually. 

“But I should be helping him,” she said. “What comes next?”

_Reintegration._

“A new life,” Rose breathed. “Good idea.”

But by now she'd come to realize the TARDIS didn't quite understand about life. Rose felt this might be one of the things she, as the organic interface, was supposed to interpret. She chaffed over her inability to explain as she grew increasingly impatient with her confinement. If only she could speak to the Doctor, they might sort this all out. She knew that physics, not the TARDIS, had imprisoned her. But knowing that didn't help one bit. 

The TARDIS had trouble with physics. It was doing the best it could, trying to reintegrate Rose into the Doctor's reality without precisely understanding what reality was. Life as Rose had known it seemed to be beyond the scope of TARDIS capability. It could manipulate atomic structure. Take Daleks apart. Put Rose back together. Simple really. But the last time it had tried creating life, it had frightened the Doctor.

“Jack,” Rose agreed, knowing they'd gotten him wrong, somehow.

Jack, it seemed, existed as a fact--a fixed point in time and space. It wasn't quite the same thing as living. Rose had the opposite problem. She wasn't fixed in any sense. Whenever the TARDIS set her free, she drifted, aimless as a helium balloon. She bounced off the walls or phased through them, apparently at random. Lacking relative dimensions, she frequently ended up beyond the confines of the ship. There she was obliged to wait until the TARDIS scooped her up again. 

Fed up with this infantile bumbling and tired of waiting for a miracle cure, Rose set aside her humanity and learned to navigate anew. It took a great deal of mental tenacity but, relatively speaking very little time, to pick up the knack of spatial placement from the TARDIS. She managed to locate the Doctor and hover nearby, almost as soon as she'd made the decision to find him. He was in the console room when she mastered stability. Days passed while she practiced maintaining her vigil above him. He came and went. Rose never left her spot above the time rotor. At first, she was content. It felt good just to watch him from afar. But the novelty wore off quickly and she began to fret again. 

He had a new traveling companion. Rose studied her closely and, like the TARDIS, liked what she saw. This Donna was a statuesque red-headed woman of about thirty-five who seemed to have no romantic interest in the Doctor at all, unlike Martha Jones, whom the TARDIS seemed to equate with a particularly nasty headache. Donna appeared to berate the Doctor constantly, but he never seemed to mind. Trying to listen in on their conversations, Rose found she had the same problem she'd had with the aliens in her alternative life. She heard nothing but static. 

_It is the frequency._ The TARDIS informed her. 

“Can you tune me in?”

_Adjusting._

“Of course, when you say 'shopping,' Donna growled, startling Rose so much she nearly phased out of the room. “You don't mean a nice visit to Oxford Street. No, when you said we were going shopping, you meant you were planning to drag me around the universe for the next few months, from one terrifying spot to the next all the while piling up a load of useless rubbish.” 

She gestured at a pyramid of assorted greasy spare parts on the floor. A splatter of viscous green slime accompanied her gesture. With a groan of disgust, she peeled a glob of oily gunk from her chin. She, then, tried rather desperately to get the goo off of her hand. Rose couldn't help noting both of her fellow travelers were coated in something foul and slippery. Snotty clumps of it dripped from their hair. Their clothing was plastered to their bodies and looking stained beyond hope of repair.

“You meant,” Donna went on, absently tugging at her garments, lifting them away from her skin, “of course, that we would be capping off the 'shopping' by crossing a swamp after stealing Lord knows what from a heavily armed government facility.”

“Not stealing, Donna,” the Doctor corrected, disentangling himself from his ruined suit jacket. “Lifting. Liberating. Borrowing,” he drawled, not quite ready to admit to his crimes. “Although, technically, I have no plans to return it. Let's call it on extended loan, like a museum exhibit. I mean, it's not as if they were planning on using it.” He pouted slightly, uncomfortable with this moral ground. “Or, if they were planning to use it, well...then...they'd be an evil government facility and it would be my sacred duty as reigning Lord of Time to stop them.” He pressed his lips together and nodded, having rationalized his way out of any guilt.

Donna, however, wasn't buying it. “This is like the money,” she said. “Which I still say is stealing. If you don't have a penny to your name, as you're always claiming, where does all the money come from out of the ATM machines?”

“My wife,” the Doctor said.

“Your...? You've got a wife?” Donna sounded shocked. And Rose felt a little heartsick. Of course, he never mentioned her. “Does she know about your 'friend?'”

“My what?”

“Your,” Donna air quoted. “Friend. The one you're always on about. Rose?”

“That's me,” Rose yelped in delight. 

Momentarily relinquishing stability in her excitement, she surged toward the Doctor just as he rolled his eyes and said, “I know this is going to come as a bit of a shock to you Donna but it is, theoretically, possible to be friends with your spouse.”

“Oh, everyone says that, 'he's my best friend,' she laughed, “but they don't mean it. Friends are friends and wives are...”

Rose might as well have stayed put. She made absolutely no impression on anyone as she fluttered past. The Doctor didn't even shiver when she phased through him, as he had when a ghostly cyberman had done much the same thing. Cybermen, Rose realized as she reoriented, were real. She wasn't. She had to concentrate to even hold her place in the universe.

“God help me,” she prayed. “Let him know I'm here.”

 _He does not want to know._ the TARDIS said. 

Rose couldn't believe it. “Why? What does that mean?” she asked.

Painstakingly reasserting her personal dimensions, she tried again to touch him, forcing herself to move slowly, deliberately. The Doctor went on speaking, oblivious to her as she stroked ghostly fingers along his jawline. He didn't want to believe in her. Facing this bitter truth nearly tore Rose in two. She was home. She had found him. He was right there in front of her, still thinking of her, mentioning her. But she couldn't reach him. He didn't want to know. Didn't want to hope, she thought, and understood why. Hope was driving her mad.

“This should help,” the Doctor said.

Startled by the aptness of his comment, Rose inspected the device he was unwrapping. “What is that?”

Amazingly, the TARDIS didn't know.

“You haven't told me what that is,” Donna asked, unconsciously parroting Rose. “Or explained how it justified my breaking two nails and a heel, ruining this blouse and nearly getting shot in the head?”

“This, Donna,” the Doctor said, careful to hold the device by the cloth-wrapped end, “is a psychograft. A particularly nasty piece of psychic paraphernalia. The mere possession of a psychograft is a hanging offense in most of the civilized universe. Well, I say hanging. Quartering. Flaying. Tickling.” He grimaced over the last one, “Horrible way to go, tickling. Dehydrating. Electrocuting. In the end, it doesn't matter how the authorities put a period to your existence, I suppose, you're just as dead afterward--unless you're not. Funny that. When a particular capital punishment isn't particularly fatal to your species. Someone sets about killing you and you shrug it off. I've been drowned and electrocuted...oh...dozens of times. And once, on Peli Horgini, the authorities tried to kill Rose and I by feeding us chocolate truffles.” 

“I remember that,” Rose said. “You kept asking for a toffee center.”

“Death by chocolate,” Donna said quellingly, “beats dying in a swamp.” 

“But we didn't die,” he pointed out, “didn't even come close. Point is,” he continued, setting the psychograft down to waffle a hand at her, “My earlier point, that is, not the one about dying. Or the other one about capital punishment." He lost his train of thought and had to backtrack over the conversation. "Yes, right. My point was that you can get up to all sorts of trouble with a psychograft. But having it is vitally important to us at this juncture. And yes, it was well worth the scrambling haste of our retreat and the cost of your blouse.”

“You're buying me a new one. First Debenhams we come to.”

“Money well spent,” he said, fishing a non-sonic screwdriver from the pile of junk on the floor. He used the tip of the tool to lever open a flip-up panel on the console.

“So...? What does it do, this psycho-whatsit?”

“Cassandra, this bint from the end of Earth, had one,” Rose told her. “Let's you use someone's body as your own.”

“It facilitates psychic communion,” the Doctor explained. “Specifically, it allows one being to overlay their consciousness on another being, in much the same way that a plasma wraith will graft onto and influence a medium.”

“A plasma...?”

“A ghost,” he said shortly. “We've got ghosts in our machinery.”

“There's no such thing as ghosts.”

“Certainly there are,” the Doctor corrected her. “On any given street corner, you'll likely be surrounded by half a dozen plasma wraiths or other transdimensional entities, all going about their spectral business. You'll rarely be troubled by them. Even the psychic folks are rarely troubled. And we certainly shouldn't be having trouble with them in here. The TARDIS exists in a state of temporal grace. Almost no chance for a haunting.”

“Almost?”

“Well, it's not unheard of.” As if checking for stubble, he stroked a hand along his cheek, tipping his head to the side. “And there have been a few minor, very slight, hiccups in the security systems lately.” His other hand gravitated to the monitor. Like a preoccupied lover, he traced one finger along the screen edge and absently fondled a few levers. “Mostly, when I've left the shields down.” His gaze darted to the shield controls, double checking they'd been activated. “She's gone a bit funny, though. Ever since....”

“Since...?”

Lost in thought, the Doctor didn't respond to Donna's prompting. He stared blankly into the middle distance. He seemed to be listening to something a long distance away. Donna was just about to prod him in the third waistcoat button when, shaking himself like a wet dog, he focused on her again.

“I was going to say ever since this particular disaster we avoided a bit back,” he went on. “But, I suddenly realized I can't be sure of when it all started. She's been giving me the cold shoulder for some time now, I think. I'd like to lay it at the feet of the Master.”

“Your old school teacher?”

“Not likely. An old enemy. Rival. Friend. You knew him as Mr. Saxon. But I just don't know if I can blame him for this. That's the problem, isn't it? I just don't know. I've check and rechecked her synaptic relays. Completely overhauled the spatial interface. Everything seems to be working. Thought for a while it must be psychological. She was quite attached to Rose, you know? But now, I've started having dreams. This,” he picked up the psychograft and waved it at her, “will let me find out what she's really thinking.”

“What your ship is thinking?” 

“Ask an awful lot of questions, don't you?” Rose muttered.

“She's not a ship in the ordinary sense--wires and plastic and steel. She's an empathic entity. There's a living being under all this hardware.” He indicated the controls with a waft of his hand. “Generally we communicate via touch and, of course, the computer interface. But from time to time a Time Lord has to re-establish his rapport with his TARDIS. Before the war, that sort of thing would have been done on my home world. There would be dozens of certified technicians lurking about in case something went wrong. But needs must. We will make do. I've parked the TARDIS near human habitation, if anything untoward happens you can walk out.”

“Something could go wrong? Like what?”

“Nothing. Forget I mentioned it. It's only a precaution. The psychograft is nearly foolproof. It will help my mind overlay hers. I'll be able to wander around in the doodads...circuits...software...find out what's making her tetchy.”

“So, you're planning to chat up your spaceship?”

“Yep.”

“Does this have anything to do with that perverted mounting thing you do?”

“What mounting thing?”

“You know what I mean. The fondling, the petting. You climb all over the console when you program it,” Donna nodded at the time rotor. “You practically make love to those levers.”

He looked momentarily nonplussed, but then said, very breathlessly, “Yes, well, as I said, she's an empath. She can sense me here. But it is getting harder and harder to break through her air of distraction and really communicate. Theoretically, the more physical contact I have with the interface,” he bounced over to affectionately smack one of the walls, “the solid part of her, you understand, the stronger our connection. Flesh to flesh, as it were. But, she hasn't been responding very readily to my overtures. Or, I suppose, I haven't been listening properly. This,” he picked up the amber crystal and waved it again, “will help us get back in sync. It will link my mind to hers, bring us face to face in my mind.”

“Sounds boring. Mind if I don't stick around for that?”

“Not at all. Go to your room if you like. Change your clothes. Do your nails. Or nap. Or fix us a sandwich. Oh, there's an idea. I could do with a nosh. Peanut butter and corned beef? Easy on the horseradish, heavy on the gherkins.” He touched his chest and grimaced theatrically. “Got a bit of heartburn.”

“I'm not making you a sandwich,” Donna said, “Do I look like your mother?”

The Doctor glanced up at her, considering. “No, not really. She was a bit shorter and plumper and she had a tattoo over her left eye.” He fanned out his fingers and placed them over his own eye to illustrate the location of the tattoo. “Of a Miltigian Dragon King. Very fetching.”

“You're kidding me?” 

“Yes, I am,” he said, stretching to reach a snip of wiring. “It used to give me the shudders.”

“I meant about your sandwich. Who eats peanut butter and corned beef?” Donna groused. “You aren't pregnant, are you? Because the last thing I need is...” 

The Doctor straightened, casting her a pained look. “No, I am not preg...” he began, only to break off in alarm as events spiraled out of control around him. 

His hip had hit a dial which shifted slightly, sending his sonic screwdriver rolling into the psychograft. The crystal device wobbled, spun and started to slide toward the floor. The Doctor's dismayed yelp galvanized Donna to action. He immediately uttered a warning squeak, but it came too late to stop her from springing forward, hand outstretched. She caught the crystal before it could shatter into pieces on, or disappear through, the metal floor grates. 

As Donna's fingers closed around the shaft of the device, the world swirled around Rose as if she were being sucked down a drain. She felt herself yanked across the room. Everything blurred for a second. When her vision cleared, she was standing in front of the Doctor and he was staring at her with wild-eyed surmise, really seeing her. 

A surge of heat ignited at her core and the air pressed on her skin. Life. She was alive. “Oh, Doctor,” she cried and threw herself against him. 

He caught her awkwardly, inexplicably dodging her first attempts to kiss him. Too inflamed by her own passions to give much thought to why he was squirming, Rose concentrated on her own ungainly body. She felt off balance and too tall. Nothing seemed to match up with the Doctor, even without his obsessive shoving at her. But she managed to align her lips to his and held on to the back of his head certain he would melt into the embrace in a moment. He continued to put up a fight. She took a brief break for a breath and he again tried wriggling free of her grasp. Sputtering in alarm, he endeavored, none-too-gently, to pry her from around his neck. 

He managed, finally, to insinuate an arm between them and lever her away. “Donna? Stop it! Take control of yourself,” he demanded. 

Rose staggered to one side, confused and hurt by his attitude. But, at least, aware of the nature of his problem. He simply didn't recognize her. She'd changed, of course. “It's me, luv,” she said, urgently soothing him. Unfortunately she returned to the embrace before she had completely processed his rejection or thought to explain further.

“Luv?” he mumbled, around her tongue, prodding the offending appendage with his own in a fruitless effort to defend himself.

His fingers clawed at her hand, seeking to wrest the psychograft from her grasp. She had forgotten it. Of course, that explained his confusion. She must have been drawn in by the device. She shifted her grip on him, easing back a little to tell him to relax. But the Doctor seized on this opportunity and pried the psychograft away from her. There was a brief flash of amber light and Rose was thrown free of her new body. 

Swirled to the far side of the room, she found it difficult to recover from the sudden attack of living. It took a few minutes to orient to her gaseous state again. While she struggled to make sense of her recent experience, she saw another woman kissing the Doctor. What was her name? Donna? Yes. She saw Donna and the Doctor acting out a romantic farce. The embrace Rose had instigated degraded almost immediately into a slapping tussle worthy of any situation comedy. 

“What are you doing? Get off me,” Donna ordered shrilly. “I said, 'get off!'” Wrenching free of the Doctor's desperate grip, she drew back her arm and slapped him across the face.

“Wha...?” he whimpered, palm going to his reddened cheek. But he quickly gave rein to his own sense of outrage. “You kissed me,” he accused. His eyes narrowed to slits as his expression became one of offended hauteur. 

Both of them seemed horrified by the memory. They fell to spitting and sputtering, wiping their mouths on the back of their hands and generally fussing like preteen siblings after a suggestion of affection. Despite her own shock, Rose couldn't help smiling over this juvenile display. She felt absurdly grateful, in hindsight, for the Doctor's utter rejection of her advances. Obviously he felt no physical attraction for his latest traveling companion. Donna might be a friend but she wasn't a romantic interest. Rose hadn't been replaced, which, she realized, was what the TARDIS had told her from the start. 

“What could have possessed you to...?” Donna began, but the Doctor cut her off.

“A better question,” he said, “a far better question is: What could have possessed you?” He turned in a slow circle, amber crystal held before him like a divining rod. “I knew it,” he muttered. “I knew there was something going on. She's been trying to tell me. Lulling me off to sleep. That dream...? There's someone else on board.“

Shivering, Donna looked around nervously. “There's someone on board?” she asked, fear overshadowing her temper. 

“Or something,” he suggested, eyebrows lifting. “An alien presence." He nodded knowingly. "The TARDIS can warn me about things like that. Invasion. She can manifest in my mind, or even outside it if she draws in enough power. But I don't always understand what she's trying to tell me. It all comes down to metaphor and simile, really, random images and vague feelings. She's only empathic, after all. Not telepathic.”

“I don't know what any of that means,” Donna protested.

“It means she can't just come out and tell the Doctor I'm here,” Rose said as she maneuvered close to them again. “Doctor,” she went on when she was staring straight into his eyes, “It's Rose. I am right here. The TARDIS pulled me across the void. Because you need me, I think. She is trying to bring me back to you, but we can't do it alone. You have to help us.” Noticing the Doctor had gone quite still, almost as if he were listening to her, Rose placed her ghostly fingertips to his cheek. She focused her energies into firm intention, as she had when using Mary Alice's hand to write, and spoke into his mind, “Help me. Help me find a way to talk to you.”

He'd heard her. She was certain of it. He stumbled backward, flailing as he jerked away from her. Catching himself on the chair, he clutched it and stood, panting and trembling and looking quite dazed. 

“What? What is it?” Donna asked. Alarmed by his reaction, she looked ready to run, but instead offered him a hand on his shoulder. 

His mouth worked silently as if he'd forgotten how to speak. But then, quite suddenly, he brightened and, beaming out a smile, said, “Right, then...Donna?” He cast an inquiring glance at his companion and held forth the psychograft. “I'm going to need you to grab onto this again.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Donna exclaimed, backpedaling. “No! Absolutely not! I'm not letting your spaceship possess me so the two of you can get up to whatever kinky alien shenanigans you find natural. No flippin' way!”

“I'm not planning any sort of...shenanigans,” the Doctor protested, wrinkling his nose and curling his lip over the word. “Honestly, the mind you have.” He shook his head, appalled by the very idea.

“There was kissing,” Donna reminded him. “Who knows what else might happen?” She leaned forward menacingly. “You listen to me, space boy. You are not using my body for your little psycho-experiment and that's final.”

The Doctor took one threatening step toward her and held her gaze for a glaring moment. He looked as if he meant to force her to comply. But, when she showed no sign of being impressed by this, he turned away with a cheerful air of nonchalance.

“Fine. Whatever. We'll just wait then, shall we? Let it take random possession of you whenever it likes,” he said, putting the crystal down again. “Last time something like this happened....” he paused to run a thumb along his bottom lip, jaw set and gaze contemplative, then said, “Poor Tegan.”

“What? What happened to her?” Donna asked suspiciously.

“Hmmm? Oh, nothing. Well, something. But she survived,” he said, flashing a wicked grin. “Course she had a bit of breakdown later. Still, all better now! Living in Sydney, last I heard. Hardly ever has flashbacks...except at the holidays. And stoplights.”

“Oh, give it up,” Rose sighed. “She can't be that gullible.”

“Promise me there will be no kissing?” Donna said, edging forward. 

“On the other hand, you know her better than I do.”

“Well, I don't know, do I?” the Doctor asked. “It seemed to come out kissing, didn't it?” He spoke to the room in general. “Donna and I would appreciate it if you didn't come out kissing.”

Donna swept another glance around the room, hugging herself as she whispered, “Can it hear us?”

The Doctor shrugged. “Possibly.”

“I can hear you,” Rose said, smiling at him. “Though I'm not sure how that works. I don't have real ears drums for sound. I think maybe the TARDIS is hearing you electronically and passing it on.”

“What would I have to do?” Donna asked the Doctor.

“Just what you did before,” he told her, “Hold onto the crystal. Whatever this entity is, it obviously is yearning to come through.”

“You won't let it stay, will you?” Donna asked. 

“I promise. I won't let it hurt you. I'm trying to get rid of it. I'll run it off again as soon as I know what it wants. Besides a snog, I mean. No shenanigans.”

Recognizing Donna's fears, Rose experienced a rush of sympathy for her. She remembered how weird it had felt having Cassandra use her body, an alien consciousness pressing down on her awareness. It was a startling violation being shuffled to the back of your own mind, having your body used like a puppet. And Rose hadn't really objected to kissing the Doctor or jumping on him, as she'd done later. Cassandra had been right about her liking it. She'd only been upset about Cassandra hogging all the new and wonderful sensations. 

Now, of course, she had a lot more sympathy, for the disembodied--the Gelth and even Cassandra. But she wasn't planning on hijacking Donna's body. She resolved, like the Doctor, to keep the physical contact to a minimum. She wished she could reassure Donna things would be different this time, but she saw no way to do so without entering her mind. 

Floating over to her, Rose gave her a soothing, if ghostly, pat and said, “I promise not to misuse your body. And to give it back to you straight away. As soon as the Doctor knows I'm here.”

“Fine,” Donna said, “But make it quick, okay?”

Rose thought the woman was addressing her, until the Doctor responded, “Quick as I can,” he said. “Wait.” He darted around the console and returned clutching some wires. “I can plug the psychograft into the TARDIS. That way we can time it all to, say, five minutes?”

“Five minutes,” Donna agreed. “And then you'll stop it?”

“I won't have to. The TARDIS will. Just a few minor instructions,” he tapped a couple of keys and consulted the monitor, “and she'll pull the plug automatically.”

“I'll have to talk fast,” Rose said. “And you'll have to think faster,” she told the Doctor. 

Anticipation made her feel as bubbly as iced champagne as she watched him wire the crystal and silver device into the TARDIS control panel. When all was ready, he solemnly offered the psychograft to Donna. She didn't want to take it. Rose saw her searching his face for some sign of reassurance. Whatever she saw there comforted her enough. Stepping forward, she drew a deep breath and, closing her eyes, wrapped her fingers around the crystal. Rose pantomimed breathing in with her. 

And exhaled through Donna's mouth. Opening her borrowed eyes, she saw the Doctor standing in front of her. The urge to throw herself at him, nearly overwhelmed her, again. She wanted nothing more than to hold him. Donna's heart started pounding in her ears. She could feel her wide smile tugging at her cheeks. She raised her free hand to her mouth and traced the grin on her full lips. She was smiling. She had a body. She was alive, again.

“Doctor,” she said, quickly coming to the point this time. “It's me. It's Rose.”

“Rose?” he breathed her name reverently. To her surprise, instead of rushing to embrace her, he scowled. “What? WHAT?”

“I know,” she agreed, taking a half-step toward him. “The TARDIS brought me back, somehow, across the void.”

“The TARDIS?” he exclaimed, still not processing it. “The TARDIS brought you back?”

“Yes, I don't know how. I just started...dissolving one day. Soon nobody could see me, not even my mum,” she blurted. “It was awful. I disappeared.” Her voice cracked as the horror of it came back to her. Tears sprang to her eyes. “I was so frightened. I'm so frightened Doctor. Help me.”

This plea brought a reaction, but not the one Rose was expecting. “Who are you?” he snarled, closing the distance between them with two long strides. Sounding furious and looking every inch the vengeful god, he wrenched her arm up painfully, twisting her elbow. “Tell me who you are!” he thundered into her face.

“Rose,” she yelped. “Honestly, it's me. First word you ever said to me? Run! Last words, uhm...my name. Right? But that wasn't what you meant to say, was it? You said,” she quoted him, “'And I suppose, if it's my last chance to say it'...yeah? And then you bollocksed the job, didn't you? Lousy timing for a Time Lord. How hard is it, really, when you think about it, to tell me you love me? We both know you do.”

“Do I?” he said. Mouth gaping, he stared at her, glittering eyes searching her face. A brief ray of hope lit him up from the inside and a tiny sigh escaped him, “Rose?” 

“Hello,” she said, smiling at him. 

Releasing her, he shuffled back a bit. His hands opened and closed, longing to take hold of her again but he didn't dare make contact, not when every fiber of his being was clamoring for her. “No, it can't be.”

“She said you didn't want to believe,” Rose said. “The TARDIS, she's been telling you I'm back, hasn't she?”

“I have to think.” He clutched at his hair. Spinning, first in one direction and then the other, he said, “If this is true. If it's true.... The TARDIS brought you back.” He was no longer questioning it but instead weighing the meaning of her words. “How?”

“Through the door in my head,” Rose said.

“The Vortex?”

“No, it's not.”

“No, it's not,” he agreed, and she could see he'd thought of something. “It can't be, can it? I took the Vortex out of you. And died. I died. Because nobody is meant to do that, have the Vortex running through them. But you didn't die, did you, Rose? And you're not dead now, are you?”

“I don't think so,” Rose said. “But I might as well be. I don't have a body anymore.”

“She couldn't bring a physical being through the void, of course,” he muttered. “Not without shattering the fabric of space/time, destroying both worlds.”

“Like you said,” Rose nodded. 

“Like I said. Oh, I'm missing something quite obvious,” he exclaimed, pounding his knuckles against his forehead. “It's right there on the tip of my brain.”

“She...the TARDIS...said I need to be reintegrated.”

“Reintegrated?” he said, the blank expression on his face showing the word itself meant nothing to him. "A Time Lord will integrate with a TARDIS. Could she mean...?"

“I'm not a Time Lord. She said I'm a... Oh, what's the word she keeps using? An...interface.”

“Interface?” He lifted his chin until his astonished gaze intersected her puzzled one. “You're...? Oh! Oh, Yes!” He cried. A huge grin burst onto his gloomy countenance as the weight of years of sorrow fell away from him in an instant. Because that word, interface, obviously meant quite a lot to him. “Of course! Of course, you are. And I have been such a complete and utter fool!”

“You're not a fool. You're the smartest, cleverest person in the universe. And you've figured this out haven't you? I knew you would.” 

“There was nothing to figure out. You've been telling me all along. You told me the very first time I asked. Right to my face. Ha! You looked into the TARDIS...”

“And the TARDIS looked into me,” she said.

“Yes, she did,” he confirmed, bounding across the room to give one of the Y-struts a bear hug of exuberant affection. “She certainly did.” Whirling around to face Rose, he asked, “And what did she see? When she looked into you? I never asked. You never said.”

“Uh...” Rose thought back. “That I wanted to...find you, rescue you.”

“Save me. Yes. You wanted exactly what she wanted.”

“I suppose,” Rose agreed, tentatively at first but then said, with greater conviction, “Yes, I did. We were of one mind on it. You were important to us both.” 

“One,” he repeated, awed by the simplicity of it. “One mind. How could you be separated? She made you part of her, plugged you in, the same way she might plug in a new Helmut Regulator. She looked into you, found a way to open a portal in your mind and taught you how to channel the Vortex, just like plugging a printer into your computer at home.” He thrust a splay-fingered hand toward the Time Rotor. “This,” he explained. “All of this machinery and circuitry, that's what it is...an interface for the TARDIS. A way for her to relate to me. And you? You were a better way, Rose.”

“But...doesn't that mean...all this time? I'm not, not human, not really Rose,” she said, remembering her mother's warning about losing her identity if she stayed with the Doctor. Her pleading gaze sought his. “Is it her you love? The TARDIS?” 

“Oh, no, no,” he came rushing back to her and caught her in his arms, burying his nose in the hollow of her neck as he squeezed her tight. “Oh, my Rose! You are no more the TARDIS than I am. Than a printer is a computer. But what you did, when you looked into the TARDIS, bound us all together,” he leaned away from her slightly and gently brushed the hair from her eyes as he said, “It linked us forever. That's why I never doubted you would stay with me, deep inside...I knew.”

Handicapped by her desperate grip on the psychograft and her promise not to misuse Donna's body, Rose still managed to make the most of this golden opportunity for physical gratification. She ran her free hand up under the Doctor's slightly damp shirt, savoring the silken softness of his skin. He snuggled close again and she brushed her cheek against his hair. She longed to catch a whiff of his spicy signature aroma, but sadly, his recent slime bath had left him reeking of root mold. But not even the goo behind his ears could dampen her enthusiasm for him. She showered him with a dozen light kisses. She nibbled her way from his earlobe, down the curve of his jaw to his mouth. This time, he responded with a guttural moan, lips parting to welcome her. His grip on her became more fervent as they rocked into one another, tongues intertwining.

Oi! Donna shouted at the back of Rose's mind. 

What? Oh, right! Sorry! “Doctor?” Rose grunted, when her husband gave her a chance to draw breath. “Your friend?”

For a second or two, he seemed completely confounded by her remark. His eyes were glassy with need, his skin bristled alluringly. He looked almost drunk with passion. And Rose, seeing it, wanted very much for him to give in to the impulse he was barely holding in check. But, drawing back a little he seemed to process her new face. The sight sobered him. 

“Oh...ah...GAH'k,” he gasped, wrenching himself away from her. Bent double and breathing heavily, he held a palm up to her as she instinctively reached out to him. “Hold on,” he panted. “Hold on. Arousal.”

“Tell me about it,” Rose rasped. With a hand pressed to her chest, she kept her distance until the Doctor recovered some sense of propriety. She couldn't really pursue him, in any case, tethered as she was to the psychograft. “I suppose, we really shouldn't be kissing just now. The clock is ticking, yeah?”

“Yeah,” he breathed. Standing straighter and adjusting his clothing, he said, “Yes. Right, mind on the business at hand.” His gaze found hers, locked on. “I just needed to touch you.”

“I know. That's what happened to me...before. I still need... What are we going to do?”

“Find you a body?” he supposed. His brows pinched together as he considered the problem. 

“Not a corpse, please,” Rose said. “I don't think I can do that.”

“What about an android? By the 53rd century they are quite sophisticated. Some beautiful models, all self-motivating. There might be some limitations on certain sensations...I'm not sure anyone thought about programming for android pleasures. Though the prosthetic fields were advanced enough,” he added, remembering his Blue Label appendage. “We might have something built to our specifications.”

“I don't fancy being a robot.”

“Not a robot. An organic machine, a living...,” he fell abruptly silent. “Oh, but you have a body, don't you?” he said, almost accusingly. 

“I do? Wha...?” she began to ask, just as the psychograft went dark. Donna's return hurled Rose into the corner again.

“You promised me,” Donna shrieked, taking a clumsy swing at the Doctor. “No kissing!”

“Did I?” he asked innocently. He effortlessly ducked under another hay-maker. “I thought it was no shenanigans. And we definitely stopped short of those.”

“You had your hand on my bum and your tongue down my throat. That's shenaniganing.” She gasped theatrically. “I think I'm going to be sick.”

“Now, Donna,” he soothed, giving her lots of space and his contrite puppy dog eyes. “It was only Rose. My Rose. She's found her way home but she's still all alone. Can you imagine it?” His words had a hollow echo to them as he intoned, “No form. No substance. No touching. Ever.”

Having shared mental space with Rose, Donna wasn't completely unsympathetic to her plight. “Yeah? Well...she can't have my body.”

“We wouldn't dream of it. Either of us. And luckily she doesn't need it to borrow your body.” He addressed the air. “I don't know if you can hear me Rose. But I've got an idea. I should be able to use the psychograft to feed your consciousness back into the system, create a looping data stream through the mechanical interface.”

“Never mind if she can hear you,” Donna groused. “The real question is—can she understand a word you're saying? Because I certainly don't.”

The Doctor grunted in frustration as he realized Donna probably had a point. The science of what he was doing went far beyond general human understanding and he didn't really feel like translating it into ape-speak at the moment. He was already busy putting his plan into action. 

“Yes, I imagine, Donna could be right,” he went on blithely. “Maybe you don't quite understand what all of that means, Rose. But trust me, this is our best chance at solidifying your identity for an indefinite time frame. I don't know if you are aware of this but the longer you stay in gaseous form the more likely it is that you will simply forget who you are. Obviously we will want to give our attention over to finding you an appropriate physical form as soon as possible but until then, I think we really must take precautionary steps.”

“I understand quite a lot of things,” Rose told him even though she knew he couldn't hear her. “You're going to link me to the TARDIS mainframe. Plug me back into her electronic systems. Then, I'll be able to manifest in your plane of existence. Well...given enough power, anyway. There is a power issue, Doctor.” 

To her surprise, he responded, “I think I know how to solve the power issues. At least temporarily.” 

“You can hear me?”

“Oh, yes. When I listen, it's quite easy.”

She edged closer to him, practically leaning into his shoulder. She watched him start a countdown with a mounting sense of trepidation, knowing there was no way to stop him. The TARDIS reassured her. It was pleased with this plan. But Rose knew there would be no turning back from it. It would change everything. It would make forever possible, but it would make her part of the TARDIS permanently. In the end, there was only one question Rose wanted to ask, “Will I still be me, Doctor?”

“Of course, you'll still be you,” the Doctor murmured solemnly, allowing himself a lopsided smile.“You aren't going anywhere, ever again, Rose Tyler,” he promised as he threw the switch on the start of her brand new life.

The last thought she had before everything went black was, I hope this doesn't hurt.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It didn't hurt. It liberated her. The TARDIS-Core breathed her in, inhaled her consciousness and Rose's knowing expanded into the infinite. She became the Core, the heart of the TARDIS. Tapping into its alien memories, she let them overlay her own understanding. The material universe shrank to the size of a twopence coin. She was barely aware of it. She could hold dozens of universes in what had been the cup of her palm. No wonder, Rose thought, no wonder you don't understand us. We're like...dust mites to you or charged particles orbiting our little suns. 

“You are tiny,” she'd once told the Dalek Emperor. But there had been no way to communicate how very insignificant such beings were to the Core. The Doctor, the Time Lords, had no idea what they were toying with in creating something like a TARDIS. The Time War...the Daleks...their worlds...their universe...none of it mattered. 

\--The Doctor matters-- the Core told her. 

Rose processed this as she floated contentedly along, watching universes appear and vanish. She experienced the Vortex, not as a wolf at the door but as a warm, comforting stream in the midst of the void. It drew her, showering her with an ever-renewing energy. The TARDIS Core had come to this place--outside creation, but linked into the Time Lord's reality by the shared stream of temporal power. A link had been created...a hook and tenuous line. It anchored the Core. Rose recognized this anchoring line. It felt the same as the pull that had drawn her out of one dimension and into another. Bearing this knowledge in mind, she found the link to her home universe without difficulty. It didn't belong in the void. 

The slight, persistent tug, caught her attention and fixed it on a specific point in a specific reality. She followed the interface signal back into her home universe. 

Busy. Bright. Loud. Hard. Cold. 

Data pounced on her, worried at her like a rat chewing on her boot. She kicked the annoyance away, but it kept scuttling back. There was noise. Meaningless din. Words. Rose recognized the intent if not the meaning of the garble and applied the translation module of this clumsy contraption she was lugging around like a ball and chain.

“I don't know what's wrong with her,” a voice said. “She simply refuses to bond with anyone.”

“It's scrap,” someone else said. A man, Rose thought, proud of herself for recognizing gender. “I told you they would botch the interface taking those shortcuts. Fried circuitry is the problem here. It's a complete failure. Just junk it and cut the organic loose.”

“We don't know what that would do to her?” the first speaker protested. “She's a living being and so rare. Once we've managed to install an interface...to abandon it again, seems like such a waste.”

“Can I have a go?” a girlish voice peeped. 

“Susan,” the man said, gruffly. “What have I told you about interrupting?”

“I just thought...if we reversed the polarity on the...”

Susan? Susan! 

It couldn't be her Susan. Rose fumbled for more linkage, wanting to see if this really could be her daughter. Nothing seemed to be working properly in the TARDIS mainframe. She wanted fists to pound on it like the Doctor used to do. It took ages to even locate the visual cortex circuits. 

I don't know how to reconnect this. I don't know what to do. Am I gumming up the gears? she asked the TARDIS. Was it me that got you sidelined? 

The TARDIS wasn't able to answer her. It had no frame of reference, yet, for interacting with people. Making that connection seemed to be Rose's responsibility. Visuals bloomed in her mind. She could see...a nose...and heavy-framed glasses...intelligent brown eyes peering at her. 

“There you are,” her daughter said, flashing that grin her father had made famous on several worlds. She twiddled her fingers. “Hello! My name is Susan Foreman. Don't ask me why. It's a ridiculous name, I know.”

It's not. It's a beautiful name.

“They've given up on you,” Susan went on, “But I won't. I promise. You don't know it yet, but you're my ride off this boring old planet. We're going to Earth. Well, one day we will go, when I'm old enough to travel and you're feeling a bit better.” Taking up a sonic screwdriver, she focused her attention on the visual link, saying, “Let's see what we can do for one another.” 

As it turned out, they could do miracles.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just as the Doctor had promised, Rose didn't go anywhere. Not really. Time and space didn't figure into things at the heart of the TARDIS. A fact that made her acronym a bit of a misnomer. The ship, as an organic entity, existed outside time and space. She absorbed Rose into the whole. Then, flashed her back to the Doctor in an instant with a thousand years of memories at her disposal. 

“There you are,” he said, beaming at her and twiddling his fingers as she took shape before him. 

Rose couldn't help laughing. “Susan, did exactly the same thing when I met her,” she told him. “That finger flutter and she said, 'There you are,' too.”

“Did you meet her?” he asked, around a wobbly smile.

“Of course. I met everyone. Your other selves. Jamie and Victoria. Jo and the Brigadier. Turlough,” she made a face. 

“The Master,” he said, pulling an identical grimace. 

“Oh, god, what a berk,” she remarked. Then, she remembered what had happened to him in the war and turned contrite. “I'm sorry. I know he was your friend and you tried to save him.”

“But he did several very nasty things to you, didn't he? I'm sorry for that. I should have protected her, protected my ship.” 

Rose had just opened her mouth to ask what he was talking about, when Donna suddenly found her voice again and barked, “Did it work? Is she here?” 

“Oh, right. Pardon me. Donna, may I present my wife? The one and only Rose Marion Tyler.”

“She can't see me,” Rose told him.

“I can't see her,” Donna confirmed, poking at the air several feet away from Rose's position. “Where is she?”

The Doctor grasped her shoulders and pivoted her to face Rose. “Right there. And you can't see her because you're not psychic. Luckily, I am,” he added.

Just as Rose also said, “Luckily, he is.”

They both burst into snickering fits over the synchronized remarks, inordinately pleased with one another. Enjoying the completeness the way they always had.

Sidling closer, Rose sighed, “It's so good to be with you again. To be me. But it is rather like a dream. I wish I could feel more.”

“You can,” the Doctor said. “You will. I've got an idea.” He turned again to his human companion. “Donna? Time to go change your clothes. Take that bath or shower. And then, I think,” he went on, fishing a bottle of pills out of his trouser pocket, “You'll want to take two or three of these.” He tossed the bottle toward her and she caught it neatly.

“Sleeping tablets?” she said, reading the label. “You trying to get rid of me?” 

“Only for a few hours.” 

“Oh, I see how it is,” she sniffed. “She's back and now it's so-long, Donna. Goodbye. Have a nice life.”

“It's not goodbye,” the Doctor said with exaggerated patience. “Just, goodnight. And yes, I suppose I am trying to get rid of you. Do you honestly want to hang about while we...?”

Donna wrinkled her nose. “You're going to spoon and moon with an invisible girl? How is that going to work?”

“Never you mind. We haven't seen each other in ages, Rose and I, and we mean to make up for lost time. Stay and watch if you want, makes no difference to me.”

“Nor me,” Rose grinned. “Being invisible takes all the shyness out of a person.” 

“Those pills,” the Doctor continued, indicating the bottle with a bob of his chin, “are just to make you comfortable.” He was circling the room again, manipulating levers as he manipulated her. “If you'd rather not take them, so be it.” He shrugged. “But we are heading straight into one of the worst ion storms this part of the universe has ever known. The ride is going to get mighty bumpy in just about,” he checked his watch. It leaked a bit of slime out the corner, “Oh, fifty-seven minutes and eight,” he tapped the watch face, “No, make that eighteen seconds...give or take...on my mark. And...mark.”

“Fifty-seven minutes?” Donna exclaimed. Worry overcame her indignation. She dashed to his side to peer over his shoulder at the churning ion monster on the monitor. 

He looked at the watch again. “Fifty-six.”

“Can't you avoid it?”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“It's an ion storm,” Donna said, over enunciating as if he were deaf or mentally deficient. “Isn't that dangerous?”

“Nah! Well,” he prevaricated, drawing out his words, “Not very. All right, perhaps a little. Yes. It could certainly be dangerous. And, under normal circumstance, I wouldn't steer straight into an ion storm.” He mussed his hair a bit. “But these aren't ordinary circs. And the TARDIS can weather it easily enough. You on the other hand? Bound to feel a tad queasy. The gravity will probably fluctuate. I'd strap in if I were you,” he advised, patting her on the upper arm. “And keep one of those emergency torches to hand.”

“You are absolutely out of your mind,” Donna declared. 

“No, I think I'm right, a torch is probably going to come in handy,” he said, deliberately misunderstanding her panicked protest. “The lights might flicker. It could get chilly and we will...possibly. Probably. I should say, probably, be tossed about like salad on a mechanical bull. Still, it's the only way to draw enough energy into the system to let Rose manifest in the flesh.” 

“Oh, and Rose must manifest,” Donna remarked, snidely.

The Doctor had turned his attention back to battening down assorted hatches, making sure they could ride out the storm without serious damage to the ship, but this question surprised him so much he glanced up again briefly. Popping his lip at Donna like some insolent teenager, he rolled his eyes as he said, “Yeah.”

“Fine,” she huffed. “I can see I'm not wanted here. I'll be in my room, if anyone cares.” She stormed toward the inner door. “If we blow up or anything...just tell the space paramedics where I am.”

“She's rather funny,” Rose said, as Donna stalked indignantly out. “Where did you pick her up?”

“She beamed in,” the Doctor said, pointing vaguely over his shoulder, then he frowned. “Wedding dress. Big old Racnoss. Don't you remember?”

“I've got no TARDIS memories from Bad Wolf on,” she told him. “The circuit completed at that point and I popped to here.”

“I see,” he peered at her. “So...you don't know about...?”

“Astrid and Martha and Joan and Sylvia and Meryl and that one with the green skin? Oh, yes. I do.”

“From my dream,” he mused. “But none of that was real. You do know?”

Rose sighed as the lights flickered. “I know.”

“And anyway, I was going to say...you don't know about everything I went through. What it was like without you.”

“No,” Rose whispered. “I know about that. I know exactly what that was like.”

Sparks danced across the console as the storm engulfed them. When the lights dimmed, Rose grew brighter, more solid. She laced her glowing fingers through his. Feeling his palm warm against hers, she gave a tiny mew and thought she might vaporize again from the intense joy flaring inside her. To touch him. To lean her head against his shoulder, this was all she needed to be fulfilled. She snuggled closer as he wrapped his other arm around her, grateful to simply stand beside him, holding his hand.

END THIS PART


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is one of the hardest for some readers, because it addresses that issue which Jackie and Russell T. Davis had with Rose staying with the Doctor. "One day there will be this strange woman in a marketplace, but she won't be you. She won't even be human." I happened to believe that love is an emotion that allows us to deal with major changes. And that Rose and the Doctor could grow and change together. But many readers were hurt by this chapter. 
> 
> My best advice, if you are one of those people astounded by the changes in the characters, is to trust in the whole of the story and allow that the Doctor and Rose continue to be united in love. They love one another and are completely committed to the relationship, even when their personalities become jaded and twisted from living for so long.

“Mmmm,” Rose hummed, “That feels so good.”

“Just here?” he asked, grinding against her. His whispered words tickled between her shoulder blades.

“Oh, yes,” she growled through clenched teeth.

“Are you sure you wouldn't rather eat something?” he teased. She always wanted three things when she manifested: food, a bath and his touch. They had already shared a hot shower. “I've put up some ice cream this time and fresh strawberries?”

Rose drew breath to answer him, but emptied her lungs on an orgasmic moan. She shuddered, quaking helplessly. Her muscles were quivering with exhaustion under his caressing hands. Her nails clawed into the chair cushion, helping her to stay upright as the TARDIS bucked and groaned. The ship seemed to be climaxing with her each time, but it was, the Doctor believed, only responding to the ragging force of the ion storm outside. 

Still, he supposed it was possible the TARDIS was enjoying this as much as they were. Rose was, after all, her organic interface. And there was nothing more organic than this. The rotor shook violently as it pumped up and down. Every now and again, the floor dropped out from under them and the room spun wildly, first in one direction, and then the other. Like a trans-temporal, cosmic teacup ride, he thought. Rose loved amusement parks.

“Some storm out there,” he said, shifting his grip again to stabilize them.

“Some storm in here.”

“Well,” he drawled, letting her hear his immodest smirk, “You inspire me.”

She giggled like a school girl between bouts of heavy breathing. Head down, she panted, “Maybe you could write—write me—a—a poem.”

“I've written you hundreds of poems,” he confessed. “Unfortunately...can't remember one word, at the moment.”

“Fuck,” she wailed and came again.

The Doctor opted to take that as an order. “Yes, ma'am,” he said, vocally saluting. “As an alternative to iambic pentameter, definitely.”

He nudged Rose's instep with his toes, urging her bare feet wider apart. When she accommodated him, he flexed his knees, prepared to take her weight if her legs buckled. She seemed insatiable this time. No sooner had she stopped gasping for air than her back bowed and her fingers fumbled blindly, reaching to caress his flowering sex. He shivered as her first tentative touch turned into an experienced exploration. She knew just what he liked and gave him her expert attention. The urge to fire his cnidocytes nearly overwhelmed his reason. He held out against instinct. He didn't want to dream, not yet. Not when reality was so ripe and delicious.

Though Rose's back delighted him, it was easier to control himself from behind her. He wasn't sure how much longer he could last without a kiss. He wanted her mouth, wanted it more than he could ever remember wanting food or water. She was perfect this time. He'd used a strand of hair plucked from a brush to program her DNA sequences into the TARDIS mainframe. This time, when she manifested, she wasn't just the image of Rose. She was solid flesh. She had blood in her veins. Saliva in her mouth. Sweat dripped from her nipples and her nose. She felt so alive in his arms, slick and sticky, as warm and juicy as a peach straight from the tree. He wanted to savor this fleeting orgy of sensation, linger over the taste, scent and feel of Rose again. His tongue slurped their intermingling flavors from his fingers, her fingers, her back and neck. 

A silvery bolt of bliss zigzagged up his spine and he knew he was climaxing. One hand at her hip, the other on the ball of her shoulder, he whirled Rose about so she faced him and kissed her. “Hold me,” he ordered through lips pressed to hers at an awkward angle. She obeyed, springing off her toes to wrap her arms and legs around him. Momentum carried them both into the chair. 

He braced a knee by her thigh, crouching on top of her like some jungle cat on prey as he sated himself on her kisses. The satin glide of her lips and the slippery weight of her tongue, curling over his, threw the breakers in his brain. He bristled all over and fired into her. Thousands of tiny darts and his seed, all spent in an instant. The release knocked him sideways. He collapsed, carrying Rose with him as he fell. They tumbled limply to the floor, both completely fulfilled. When the TARDIS pitched, they rolled with her, until they found refuge under the mushroom cap of the console. There they curled around one another, limbs intertwined, dreaming of a long life together.

The Doctor woke up space sick. His head swam when he lifted it. Loneliness briefly assaulted him, before he even opened his eyes, but a quick caress of the nearest strut soothed him. He shouldered the burden of his flesh as he crawled, stumbled and staggered about collecting his clothes. The TARDIS had initiated power conservation measures in the wake of her recent buffeting. She'd dimmed the lights and was flying steady and slow. The ion storm was far behind them and Rose was a wraith again. 

The Doctor ate his strawberries and ice cream alone.

A COUPLE OF DECADES FURTHER ON...

A light drizzle started to sputter down and the Doctor paused a moment to turn up his coat collar. Rose, oblivious to the weather, danced ahead of him like a will-o-wisp, flickering in and out of view. She rounded a corner and he lost sight of her completely. He dashed to catch up to her, his soggy trainers squeaking as he took the turn. Thrown by the irritating noise, he looked down for a moment to glower at his feet and nearly ran over a woman pushing a pram. 

He spun around the obstacle, apologizing as he ran on. “Sorry. Sorry.”

Feeling his tread could be a touch more sprightly, he tried to instill a bit more spring into his steps. His left knee twinged with the attempt and he grimaced. Aching knees? He wasn't that old. 

A passing lorry splashed a shower of cold, grimy water over him. He halted, sighing as he wiped wet grit from his eyes. Worn out and slightly damp, a fit companion for a perpetual beauty like his Rose, yes? Maybe it was time to try a planned regeneration. He could be ginger. Looking ahead, he saw no sign of Rose and no cover either. There was no break in the building facades, nothing but pavement. He tipped his head back and took a refreshing shot of rain in the face. Then, he cast a glance along the endless stream of oncoming traffic. He'd have to cross the street to seek shelter. Surely, that wouldn't be necessary. He must have an umbrella tucked into one of his many pockets. Rose stepped out of the wall next to him while he was patting himself down for brollies.

“How much further?” he asked, making an effort not to sound crotchety. He might be sporting a few more gray hairs these days, and his knees might have a tad less bounce, but he wasn't ready to stop skipping merrily along in her wake. 

“It's just up there," Rose said, pointing along the street. “I recognize the awnings. Bistro & Bean.” 

“Bistro & Bean? Sounds like a sitcom,” the Doctor observed. 

“Oh, don't you get crotchety with a bit of rain?” Rose said, her doting grin taking the sting out of her teasing. “Are your knees aching again?”

“My knees are fine,” he told her. Then, he lifted his chin and smiled ruefully. “Maybe a little stiffness in the left one. It's the wet weather.”

“We should get you inside,” she said. “Cuppa tea,” she added, sounding just like her mother.

The watery sunlight shone thorough her translucent skin, giving her a golden aura. She had imagined herself in a summery frock. The dress fluttered counter to the breeze, but that was the only flaw in her astral projection. She looked to be an angelic twenty-two, human and alive. But she wasn't alive, not completely. And she would never grow a day older unless he could solve the host of difficulties they'd encountered in finding her a new body. 

Until this trouble with Rose, the Doctor had never given much thought to replicating a physical form. Catastrophic injury wasn't generally a problem for Time Lords. He wished he'd discussed it with the Master in more detail. Not that Rose would ever dream of taking over another person as the Master had done. Ethics played a part in their conundrum. There were several unethical ways to get a spare body. But finding Rose one of her own was proving more trouble than he would have imagined it could be. They'd been wrestling with the problem for over two decades now. 

Rose threaded her ghostly arm through the crook of his elbow and pretended to lean her head against his shoulder. He wanted to feel the mass of her as a physical form by his side. He wanted to caress her cheek and smell the chemical tang rain used to give her hair. 

“Are you ready to go on?” she asked.

“Certainly, I'm ready,” he said. 

They bounced along in tandem for a few meters, Rose matching her step to his. “Isn't this exciting?” she said, “Our first co-companion.”

“I thought Adam was our first,” he said. 

“Adam?” She pirouetted away from him again. “I can just about see you counting Jack, but Adam? He was more like a...a stray.”

“Lots of them were like strays,” he murmured, scratching an ear. “Wandering in unannounced and asking to be fed, making themselves at home. Tegan. Peri. Victoria. Ace. What about Susan? Can't say she wasn't a joint effort,” he added with a smirk

Rose looked down at her feet and, he felt a brief pang of regret for reminding her of their lost daughter. But a moment later he saw her wistful smile and realized much of her pain had been muted by the TARDIS years. And why not? She had almost as many fond memories of their daughter now as he did. 

“Susan doesn't count,” Rose said, prodding him with an elbow that entered his body. “She's family.” She wagged a finger. “And before you go on, I'm not counting anybody I wasn't consulted about...so nobody from my TARDIS years.” She leveled the finger at his nose. “And not Mickey or Donna either.”

Focused on him and smiling, she lost track of where she was going and backed off the curb into the path of an oncoming bakery lorry. The rig wouldn't have had time to stop even if the driver had noticed Rose. As it was, it swept by without braking. The Doctor flinched but checked himself from leaping forward to save her. He'd learned to control that particular reflex. Rose didn't need saving. She couldn't be hurt in her present form. She was as impervious and ageless as a spirit. The passing lorry blocked his view of her for a moment and his stomach clenched. It always did when he lost sight of her. His mind might be coping with Rose's half-life but his stomach often imagined her gone again. He wondered if he would ever stop missing the feel of her skin against his, wishing for the scent of her hair, hoping to have her whole again.

He was ashamed to admit he'd been tempted by the prospect of cloning. But, he had to agree with Rose about the uncertainty involved. They wouldn't be cloning organs in a vat. They would need a working brain for Rose to be downloaded completely. The prospect of designing, nurturing and educating a twin for the sole purpose of harvesting her flesh appalled both of them. It would be premeditated murder, murder by design. In order to develop fully functional neural pathways a clone would have to be stimulated with images and memories. Humanity had the technology to do this, to feed Rose's life to the clone as it slept. If allowed to wake, environmental influence would help the clone develop a unique personality and possibly personality disorders. But even in a perpetual dream state, there were no guarantees about the mental stability of clones. Clones might very well have the human equivalent of a soul, consciousness or self-awareness. Rose wasn't comfortable with the idea of feeding a duplicate her life story in advance.

“How would you even know if it was me?” She had asked him. “If it had all of my memories?”

“I would know,” he'd told her. “But I can't promise you nothing will go wrong.”

When a break in the traffic allowed him to join Rose on the other side of the street, she pointed through the coffee shop window and said, “I told you. There she is in the back corner booth.” He shielded his eyes and looked. 

“Can't say I like the look of her from here,” he grumbled, as he headed for the shop door. “Looks timid.”

Rose caught at his sleeve, a difficult feat for her, and said, “Try not to scare her.”

"A Time Lord and his invisible friend drop by your table and offer to take you away from your work-a-day life," the Doctor remarked, brows arching. “How is that scary?”

Rose stifled a giggle and ducked around him as he was holding the door for her. His apparently pointless show of gallantry attracted the attention of a woman in a blue suit, who had queued up to pay for her coffee. She raked him with a quelling glare. Noting the attention, he grinned madly at her. Her nose twitched in disdain and she turned to whisper something into the ear of a companion. 

The companion gave the Doctor a pitying look and said, just loudly enough to have the words carry, “Probably drunk.”

Eyes on his critics, the Doctor spoke to Rose from the corner of his mouth. "Now I know how poor old Elwood P. Dowd felt."

“That's why we're here," Rose reminded him as they weaved their way through a maze of small round tables and chattering coffeehouse guests. “You need someone a little more visible to talk to so the natives don't cart you away to the loony bin.” A man walked through her and she pushed both hands into his back. “Oi, I'm haunting here.” The man went on his way, not at all bothered by Rose's ethereal shove. “Oh, just once, I'd like to jump out and scream boo at someone,” she grumbled. She noticed the Doctor hanging back and gave him a quizzical look. “What's wrong?”

He bobbed his chin at the person they were zeroing in on. The girl was exactly as Rose had described her. Up close she looked even less impressive. She was a thin, mousy creature. Her shoulders were hunched, her head bowed. Hair curtained her face. He could just make out her small, even features. She sat, curled into a ball, in the corner of a booth near the back of the shop. A wire-bound journal lay open on the table before her and one of the café's hot, sweet drinks steamed at her elbow. 

“This is a bad idea,” the Doctor said, turning to go. “I like it better when it's just you and me. We can sleep naked in the console room. And she seems frail, doesn't she? Last thing we need is some shy retiring butterfly drooping about the place...fainting and fluttering. What if she develops a crush on me? I'd hate that."

"You big liar,” Rose laughed, standing in his way, certain he wouldn't walk through her. 

“I would hate it,” he said loftily. “I never know what to do with them when they give me those hungry puppy eyes.”

“I'll head off her infatuation," Rose assured him, with a shoulder pat, “We'll nip it in the bud.” 

The Doctor swallowed down his apprehension, plastered a too wide smile on his face and oriented again on their quarry.

“Hello,” he chirped as they arrived at her booth. The girl glanced up expectantly, but quickly frowned in confusion. “I'm the Doctor and this is Rose,” the Doctor continued, making his usual sing-song introduction. He waved a hand vaguely toward the center of the room, but the girl's eyes found Rose, focusing on her for the briefest of seconds. It was enough to encourage him. “Rose, as you can plainly see, is immaterial. By which, I don't mean unimportant, but rather without form or substance. Insubstantial. Better word. Only certain people can see her. Select...shall we say,” he pursed his lips into a moue and rubbed a hand along his cheek, “....gifted people?” 

“People like you,” Rose said, and again, the girl looked directly at her. 

The Doctor's carefree manner fell away as he dropped into the seat opposite the girl and fixed her with a steady stare. “You can see her can't you, Mary Alice?”

The girl gaped at him for a second or two, unable to comprehend why this boisterous, middle-aged man had launched an assault on her usually quiet corner. Her gaze swished to the side, looking beyond him as if she were searching for a rescuer. Again, she looked at Rose, but she seemed to expect nothing from that quarter. Her shoulders slumped as she reached for her notepad. The Doctor's hand got there first. He slid the pad into his lap, out of her reach.

“Sorry,” he said, with amused contrition, “But you won't be needing that. I forgot. Wait. I've got just the thing for you. One moment,” he went on babbling as he patted his coat front. Brightening, he jammed a hand into a pocket and drew out a lovely pendant necklace. It was silver with a pinkish stone. “Here we are,” he said, offering her the necklace. “Put this on. It'll make matters much simpler.” 

Mary Alice extended her hand, fingers lax. He encouraged her with a jiggle of the necklace and a bob of his chin. “Go on. It won't strangle you.”

“Doctor,” Rose warned when Mary Alice went sheet white and pulled her hand back. Rose focused on reassuring the girl. “It's a voice modulator. You think; it speaks.”

“Takes a bit of getting used to,” the Doctor added. “I imagine you'll blurt out every little thing at first, but you'll soon get the knack.”

“Go on, Mary Alice,” Rose encouraged, “give it a try.”

Mary Alice Elder’s eyes narrowed. She studied the spectral Rose for several heartbeats before cautiously pinching the chain of the necklace between two fingers. She plucked it from the Doctor's grip but let it twirl in front of her like a hypnotist’s watch. As it whirled she peered at it. It refracted a rainbow of light along the wall and across the table. Seizing the pendant jewel, she turned it over in her hand. She tapped it with a fingernail and then squinted at it as she held it up to the light. 

“Ever heard of not looking a gift horse in the mouth?” the Doctor asked brightly. 

Mary Alice stuck her tongue out at him, her expression petulant, and Rose snorted. “Guess she doesn't love you on sight.”

Eyes widening in alarm, Mary Alice signed an emphatic question. Though Rose had some understanding of sign language, she shook her head. “Use the pendant,” she said. “It'll make things easier in the long run.”

After carefully considering this, Mary Alice eased open the necklace clasp. Head bowed forward, she positioned the chain around her neck and fastened it in place. The pendant settled into her cleavage and started pulsing in time with her heartbeat. Distracted by the flashing light, she blanched. 

“What-who-youcrazyI'mgoing-mad-need to a home...ghosts seeing ghosts this they'll put me away...whywhat is I can hear-this thing is talking God off,” the necklace said. 

Mary Alice jerked, scrambling backward in her seat, her mouth opening and closing. She seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. Gasping, she clawed at the chain, yanking it over her head so quickly it tangled up in her hair, pulling out several strands. She hurled the pendant at the Doctor.

He caught it out of the air. “Oh, you will have to do better than that,” he chided, his face lined with disappointment. “And practice moving your mouth, at least on primitive worlds,” he glanced around before adding, “like this one.” 

“Doctor,” Rose warned, again. 

If there hadn't been a wall behind Mary Alice, Rose imagined she would have clambered out of the booth over the seat back. As it was she was looking longingly toward the shop door.

“Everything takes practice, Rose. Squash. Sex. Or playing the cello. You don't, do you, by any chance?” He asked Mary Alice. “Play the cello, I mean? We could use someone with musical talent. Makes those long evenings in the Vortex just fly by. I used to play the recorder. And I have a mean hand with the mandolin. Rose and the TARDIS both sing. Maybe you'll sing, too.”

“We won't mind if you ramble, at first,” Rose told Mary Alice. “You can see I’m used to it.”

“I do tend to natter on,” the Doctor said. “Don’t get me started on Reality Television. I’ll go on for days. But, with a minor adjustment or two....” He flipped the pendant over in his palm and used his thumbnail to pop off the back of the setting. “You need not express yourself via stream of consciousness babble.” He shrugged. "Unless it suits you. Suits me."

Mary Alice watched him warily as he took the sonic screwdriver from a pocket and pointed it at the jewel. There was an earsplitting squeal and pop. He blew on the pendant to cool it, snapped the setting shut and tucked the screwdriver away again. Then, he coiled the necklace on the table top. 

“Try it now.” 

Rose gestured for him to scoot over. He made room for her to sit, a simple kindness not lost on Mary Alice who was accessing them carefully. She was also visually measuring the distance to the front door. 

“I see you are wondering if it would be a good idea to bolt for the horizon, hmmm?” He suggested, brows arching.

"I know this must seem completely mad, to you,” Rose said. “But,” she glanced at the Doctor, “You can trust us. I met you once, in another life, in another universe. Which, again, sounds balmy. But I know you’re all alone here and you could use a friend.”

Mary Alice swallowed. Shifting forward, she extended a trembling hand, skimming her fingers across the slick table top until she could draw the necklace to her. The chain hissed as it glided across the table top. It flowed over the edge into her lap. Her fingers toyed with the necklace for a bit, and then she very tentatively lifted it above her and lowered it over her head again. 

When the pendant settled against her chest, it asked, “Who are you?” 

“I told you, I'm the Doctor and this is Rose,” he said, touching Rose's shoulder. “You can see her, can't you?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Capital. Now, where to begin?” He shifted to seek help from Rose with a silent appeal. Mary Alice's pendant continued to spit out random comments, some quite insulting, which he manfully ignored.

“He's a Time Lord,” Rose said, getting the hint he needed help. “He has this...ship. And I'm...part of it.”

“Like Andromeda?” Mary Alice asked. 

“Remember to move your mouth.” the Doctor coached.

“That's a show on telly (made up...you've gone mad)...Andromeda...the ship has a...hologram...(crazy house, loony bin, coats),” Mary Alice said, moving her lips but not really coordinating with the words. 

The Doctor decided to ignore her subconscious insinuation about her mental health and address her core question. “Oh, right,” he drawled. “Gene Roddenberry! Why does he always come up in my life? I've talked to Rose about what he did with Tribbles. Silly really.”

Rose cut a sharp glance at him. “Don't start in on the Tribbles,” she ordered in a muted aside.

“Quite right. The Tribbles are not important. The dilithium crystals on the other hand. But, water under the bridge. And no, Rose isn't a hologram. Or a part of the ship in the way that a projection might be. Rose is a person without a body. She goes on living because I've linked her to my ship. The TARDIS interface is her body. You are seeing her...well...astral projection, her ghost.”

“There's no such thing as ghosts.”

“Now...you know that's not true, Mary Alice,” the Doctor admonished gently. 

“That's why we're here,” Rose said. “Because you know about ghosts. You have a gift, a very special way of seeing. The Doctor has it, too. But we need someone like you. Someone who understands about me.”

“Someone with your perceptive skills,” the Doctor cut in seamlessly. “How would you like a spot of adventure? See the stars? Travel through time and space? I ask because we have a vacancy in our crew. We could use someone a bit more material than Rose for...oh...passing me the occasional spanner and standing about looking...visible.”

“Someone who can be a sort of go between,” Rose said.

“More than that,” the Doctor inserted. “A mate...pal, friend, buddy for us both." He waggled his head as he admitted, "I get rather lonely from time to time. You would be in charge of communication. Rose is in charge of...well...me, really...but also, sympathizing, hand-holding and figuring out what I've missed. If you're feeling lonely or lost or fed up with my alien ways, Rose is the one to talk it all out with. I'm practically useless at that sort of thing. Sympathy, I mean. I'm in charge of adventure and world saving and brilliant flashes of last minute inspiration.” 

The way they kept finishing one another's thoughts made Mary Alice feel both uncomfortably intrusive and yet paradoxically secure. It crossed her mind that this must be what it was like to have parents who were happy with their marriage and with her. She couldn't help noting the glance of indulgent adoration Rose favored the Doctor with before shifting in the seat to point out the window. 

“Do you see that cross street?” Mary Alice sighted along Rose's arm and nodded. “Down there, turn left at the light, six blocks on you'll find a blue box. That's the TARDIS, our time ship.”

“She's in charge of...,” the Doctor shrugged and looked at Rose again.

“Everything else,” she said, smoothly. “She translates things for example. Like your thoughts into language. Have you got that?” 

“I-I think so,” Mary Alice said, fingering the pendant in amazement. 

“Fantastic,” the Doctor said. He tried out his most charming smile on her, the skin crinkling around his eyes. “Back to our offer. Not doing anything for the next year or so are you?” he asked hopefully, “Nothing important, I mean? Rose thought you might enjoy getting out of your oppressive one-room flat. Her word that, oppressive, not mine. I'm sure it's quite cozy.”

“You want me to just go with you...just like that? You're asking me to leave my life, my job, my...everything and...” She waved an arm at the ceiling fans.

The Doctor cast a puzzled glance at the fan, and then exchanged a pointed one with Rose. She lifted one shoulder, saying, “That's how it generally works, yeah?”

“Well,” he said as he tugged at an ear, “Sometimes I don't ask. Strays wander in and...”

“But that's insane.”

“I suppose it is,” Rose said. Drawing on a reserve of power, she manifested for a moment to brush a reassuring touch across the girl's hand. “But I did it.”

Used to poltergists, Mary Alice frowned instead of flinching from Rose's caress. “Is that why you’re…dead?”

The Doctor squirmed. He fidgeted with a handful of sugar packets, stacking them in a pyramid. His lashes were lowered to veil his eyes. Rose showed no sign she'd heard the question. 

“You can trust us. Think of the pendant you're wearing. Either you're mad and this is all in your head, in which case you've nothing to lose, or we're telling you the truth.”

“Oh, come on,” the Doctor cajoled, scooping all the sugar into a pocket, even the spilled grains. He winked broadly, clicking his tongue at her. “Whaddya say? See the universe, no waiting?” He dialed the charisma up another notch, his words taking on a hypnotic rhythm. “There are stars out there, burning with cold fire. Crystal moons. And cat people.”

“Mr. Whiskers,” Mary Alice choked, remembering her duty to her pet.

“What?” The Doctor drew back, scowling. He shot an accusing glare at his spectral companion, “Oh, you didn't tell me she had a cat,” he whined, his nose wrinkling above a sneer. 

“Never mind about the cat,” Rose said. She leaned across the table, intent on their sale's pitch. “Mr. Whiskers can come, too. We've got plenty of room.”

“He'll get lost behind the wainscoting. Mewling for days and days. Open cans of tuna underfoot. I'm not crawling around in the duct work looking for...”

“Never mind about the cat,” Rose repeated in a hissed aside. She jerked her head back around and stared in some glassy confusion at Mary Alice. “Where were we?"

"Outer space," Mary Alice said. 

"That's right. Think on it. Alien races. Fantastic worlds. More beauty and wonder than you can possibly imagine. We travel to the past, to the stars, further than you ever dreamed possible. And all we ask is the pleasure of your company. That's the price of a ticket off this slow moving world.”

“Best deal you'll get all year,” the Doctor said, all teeth and good cheer again.

“You go to the stars, other planets?" Both of her visitors nodded vigorously. "Why?”

“Fun,” the Doctor answered. He gave an enthusiastic growl of pleasure, when he added, “Because they’re there.”

“And we rescue people. Save them. Today we're saving you,” Rose said. She flickered, like a television signal full of static and looked toward the door. “Whoop, I've got to go. Been away too long. But please say yes. The Doctor needs someone to hold his hand. And, every so often, I need someone to talk to besides him.”

“One trip,” the Doctor cajoled. “You can do one trip. Home in time for tea.” 

"You'll never hit tea-time," Rose mumbled as she disappeared.

He slid out of the booth to go. His stomach was already cramping, but he offered Mary Alice his crooked elbow. “If you don't like it we'll bring you straight home. I know just where we will go, too. Draco’s Bane in the Hermes Array. Nothing to do with Harry Potter, I’m afraid. Dragons! I know someone who can fit you with a permanent voice modulator. He's working on making Rose a new body.”

“There’s no such thing as…dragons,” Mary Alice said weakly, as she fingered the pendant.

The Doctor wiggled his eyebrows. “No such thing as time travel, either. We can’t let that stop us. You and I, we see apparitions.”

Mary Alice Elder closed her journal. Opening her purse, she carefully counted out money to the table to pay for her drink. Then, clasping journal and purse in one hand, she stood and took the Doctor's arm and they went out into the rain.

NEARLY TWENTY-SIX DAYS AFTERWARD

Fourteen minutes.

She'd been out of the hospital fourteen minutes. They'd had fourteen minutes to kiss and cuddle and exclaim in delight over her new body. The Doctor had twirled her round and round like a ballerina. He'd told her she was beautiful in thirty-three times in as many different languages. 

Fourteen minutes to hold hands and make plans. 

Fourteen minutes of skipping along, whispering heated promises into each other's ears. 

And he was gone. 

“Rose?” Mary Alice's voice seemed to come from very far away. “Is he dead? He can't be dead.”

Lost in her own pain, Rose didn’t answer. She knew her duty as his wife. She should explain about regeneration. Explain how the Doctor would recover from the mangled heap of meat in her arms. She knew exactly what Mary Alice was feeling, how confused and frightened she was. Mary Alice needed comfort. The Doctor needed the TARDIS and quiet and rest. But all Rose wanted to do was rewind the last fourteen minutes.

Her new body had no tears, no mechanism for them. No tear glands. This shimmering, supple new form with its delicate gills, slender limbs and slanted, fathomless blue eyes couldn't do the one thing she truly needed it to do. With Mary Alice hovering over them, Rose mourned her perfect lover as he changed, became a new man. His shattered legs mended. His crushed face reformed. He tried to say her name, but couldn't. He twisted in her arms, and then lay quiet, eyes closed, breathing shallow. Bent double over him, Rose wailed out her sorrow. People gathered to stare. The high-pitched keening pierced eardrums and abraded her throat as she rocked back and forth. It came with forever, this loss. They should have expected it, but it had taken them both by surprise.

One moment he was there beside her, the next moment she'd stepped off the curb, forgetting for a crucial split-second that she was no longer a wraith. The Doctor reacted without any thought for his own safety. Spinning her out of its path, he'd taken the full impact of a loaded bus. It had been far too soon for her tissues to regenerate. She was just out of the hospital. But oh, how she wished he let her be crushed under those cruel wheels. 

Never again would he arrogantly assume that air of command. Those long, sensitive fingers would never again caress her. Those mercurial eyes would never again fix on hers; never sparkle with joy or share a sense of despair He would never again grin his mad grin or smile that sweet, boyish smile. Never bounce along beside her in colorful trainers and a rumpled pin-striped suit. Never again would she ruffle that mane of unmanageable hair into complete disarray. Her exquisitely tender, marvelously disheveled Doctor was no more.

In his place was a new man. Ginger, at last, he stared up at her with pale emerald eyes. He looked younger, but also older somehow. His shoulders were broad, his figure stocky and strong. Mary Alice stepped into the dear companion role. She helped him to the TARDIS. Rose trailed dejectedly along in their wake. When they trooped to the wardrobe, Rose plopped into one of the wicker chairs, drawing her knees to chest. He explained the regeneration process to Mary Alice. Rose whimpered. She thought she would never be free of the raw grief in her chest. If only she could cry.

The Doctor seemed happy enough, but he had a gruff, taciturn way of speaking. He declared himself a man of few words, sick of babbling, as he admired the barrel-chested brawn of his new physique. Rose thought he looked like a dull country squire. His brown suit trousers no longer fit him. They strained at the seams. He struggled free of them, ripping the light material, and cast them aside with a sneer. He seemed to have cast aside Rose as well. Mary Alice helped him rummage through boxes and racks of clothes. He found a stout walking stick, heavy cord slacks and a pair boots and pronounced himself content. Rose, head hanging low, grumbled in discontented counterpoint and he took notice of her at last. Striding across the room, he chucked her under the chin.

“Not so bad, hey?” he asked, flinching as he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. “A touch grizzled, perhaps.” He drifted away from her, intent on a rack of coats. “But I expect we'll get used to it. Now, what do you think of this jacket?” Pulling one from a hanger.

“I like it,” Mary Alice said, flashing him a sweet smile. 

Rose stared in disbelief at the mustard-colored horror displayed for their opinion. “It clashes with your hair,” she said. “And the room. Something green might be better, to bring out your eyes.”

“My eyes?” He sniffed in disdain. “Poppycock!”

Hurt by this brusque dismissal and angry at herself for causing him to be injured in the first place, Rose gave vent to her pent emotions. She surged to her feet. “You know what you are? You're a codger,” she said. “Lumbering and dull.”

She knew she was being unreasonably hard on him. None of this was his fault. In fact, it was her fault. Besides, it shouldn't matter to her how he looked, but she couldn't seem to stop aching for his comforting touch. She wanted his former self back. It wasn't just that he'd changed. It was the fear and guilt she felt over what had happened. Fear that he'd never want her in the same way again. Guilt that she'd gotten him into this body. He had tufts of hair on his knuckles. The backs of his once elegant hands were gnarled. He was like this, rough and crude and ugly because she'd made a stupid, reckless mistake. 

“And you're a fish,” he told her, coldly meeting her gaze in the mirror as he confirmed her worst fear.

Mary Alice caught her breath. She looked from one of them to the other. “I should go check on…the front door,” she said, edging for the ramp off the wardrobe. 

Neither Rose nor the Doctor acknowledged her leaving. They glared at one another via their reflections, the sharp rebukes poisoning the air between them. 

He broke first, looking away. “Did you expect me to stay like that forever?” he asked. “That's not how it works.”

Rose's acknowledge this with a slight dip of one shoulder. Her line of sight swept downward taking in her full reflection. The new body was exquisite and exactly what she'd ordered. Her skin was covered in microscopic scales. They gave her an opalescent shimmer. Her luminous eyes showed no white around the iris. There were very fine gill slits on her neck. But she wasn't a fish. She was a Sinann, a beautiful mermaid. 

The Sinann were the source of many ancient myths on Earth, selkies and sirens and mermaids. Like the Time Lords, they had the ability to regenerate tissue. Unlike the Doctor's people they switched bodies instead of recreating them, which meant they had spares. Adult Sinana produced designer cells capable of growing a new body to their exact specifications. When the body was ready, a personality--a life force, could move in like a hermit crab changing shells. This process had given Rose flesh again. Renewable flesh that could regenerate limbs and organs. It might last as long as the Doctor would.

Though technically no longer a mammal, she still had lithe curves. A waterfall of dark hair cascaded in a slick sheet to the back of her knees when she set it free. Currently, she wore it tied into a series of knots, but she loved the silken glide of the hair against her skin. Her mouth and ears and cheekbones were sculpted perfection. She had eyes so blue her Doctor swore he would drown in them before the week was over. He’d been as thrilled as she was by the prospect of exploring this body, testing its limits. But her Doctor was gone and she had no tears. How could they have forgotten about tears? 

“The flesh is not who we are,” he said, reading her mind from the far side of the room. “It's only how we look.” 

She swallowed against the lump in her throat. “I suppose,” she whispered.

“I know,” he said. “I’m still me, honestly.” He pulled on the ugly jacket and tied an equally appalling bow tie under his bristly chin. The ghost of a smile flitted across Rose's lips. He looked ridiculous.

“Is that a smile?” He asked with a twinkle in his eye.

She took a step closer to him. “It's all just so...different. I can't cry.”

“I don't want you to cry,” he said. “I expect we'll get used to it,” he repeated. Turning to face her he held open his arms in invitation. 

Rose drew a shaky breath. The tight coil of sorrow in her chest began to unspool. She went to him, let him fold her into an embrace. His cheek felt rough against hers and his calloused fingertips tugged at strands of her hair, but the kiss he feathered gently over her lips was her husband's kiss. Eyes closed, skin-to-skin, mind-to-mind, he felt like the same man to her.

“My Doctor,” she sighed. 

“And you're still my Rose.”

 

CENTURIES LATER

 

“You won't get away with this,” Rose snarled. “He won’t let you.” She raised her voice, calling out, sharply, “Doctor? I need help. Doctor?”

“He’s gone, you pathetic little fool,” Jeffrey Morton sneered, one hand shoving lank locks of dark hair out of his eyes.

“He's not,” she insisted, though her voice quaked with fear. “He'll be back. And you'll be sorry.”

“Don't you get it,” Jeffrey mocked. “He’s grown beyond you. He’s a Time Lord again. And with my help, he will be a god.” There was no light of reason in the man’s eyes. His mouth had an ugly twist to it and there were traces of spittle on his lips. Rose couldn’t believe she’d ever found him handsome. Why hadn't they gotten rid of him? 

“Please, Jeffrey, listen to me...everybody loves the Doctor, everyone...”

“I am the one he needs now.” He slapped the flat of his palm against his chest. “I'm the one who will help him take his rightful place in the universe. He will be worshiped. Revered. Obeyed. And I…I will be his right hand. The angel of death incarnate.”

“You’re a total loony,” Rose said, wrenching at the straps restraining her wrists. “And you don’t know anything about the Doctor.”

“I know he's sick of you.”

“He's just sick. The regeneration has gone wrong and he needs me. I’m part of him.”

“You’re part of his ship,” Jeffrey corrected. “Just a plug in, an obsolete plaything. And well past your prime, I might add. Oh, I forgot to tell you. We’ve found another TARDIS, a newer model.”

“What?”

“Time to send the old one to salvage.”

“He would never scrap her.”

“She’s a rotting relic,” Jeffrey said his upper lip curling. “You think he’s like you? Human? Sentimental? You made him weak.”

“Oh, when I get out of here,” Rose said through tightly clenched teeth, “you are going to wish you'd never been born. If you hurt him...”

“Hurt him? I've liberated him. He was born to rule over time and space. You domesticated him. Corrupted him. You're like a virus in that horrible old ship. The sooner the both of you are eradicated the better.” 

A rasp of heavy chains drawn over metal brought their attention to the room door as it slid to one side. For one breathless second, Rose thought it was the Doctor come to rescue her. Then, a hulking mass of flesh and twisted machinery lurched into the light. 

“Ah, Corlio, my dear friend,” Jeffrey greeted the newcomer with a hardy slap to the shoulder. “I have here a Sinann regenerating organism. Amazing creature, take off her leg and she grows a new one, pluck out her eyes and she will soon see again. Keep her fed and you can go on harvesting her organs for years. What do you say to that?”

“Fifty credits,” Corlio rumbled.

“One hundred and fifty,” Jeffrey countered. “She’s a BioMech Trader’s dream.”

“Seventy-five and I let you have a head start to your ship,” Corlio said.

Jeffrey’s eyes narrowed at the implied threat. He glanced at the door, obviously judging the distance for a sprint. “It’s a deal.”

“You’re not cutting me up for the black market,” Rose growled, wondering if she should sacrifice her hands and feet to be free of the operating table restraints. If she wrenched off a limb, how far would she get on nubs? Furious insults tumbled out of her mouth. “I swear you’ll regret this, Jeffrey, you sniveling little shithead bastard. You and the Borg Collective are going to pay for this with your blood, with your bone marrow. You know what they call us? Him? Me?”

“I call him, Lord and you…history,” Jeffrey said.

_DOCTOR?_

There was no response to her frantic mental scream, no comforting touch mind-to-mind. She couldn't believe her Doctor had abandoned her to these vicious people. But all she knew of him had vanished at the last regeneration. He was remote now, indifferent and oddly unfocused. Her every attempt to map a way through the dark labyrinth of his mind was repulsed. She'd tried following the thread of their eternal connection, but a wall of chaotic rhythms blocked her way. She couldn’t reach into the Doctor's core, couldn't find the real him.

 _He is lost,_ the TARDIS said. _He cannot hear us. Only the sound of drums. He has regeneration sickness._

_They’re going to cut me. I-I can’t get free._

_You are free. You are not flesh. You are an interface._

Rose repeated it to herself as money exchanged hands. “I am an interface,” she said. “I am not flesh. I am not flesh. I am not…” 

Jeffrey left with a parting taunt. The spinning knives above her started to descend. She went to the golden door in her mind. She opened it to the Vortex, the link to the TARDIS. There was a familiar tug at the center of her being. She fell forward into the singing light. It surrounded and penetrated her.

The knives arrived. Pain lanced through legs and she screamed. Far away, like an echo, the Doctor screamed, too. A golden fire filled the room. The last thing Rose saw with her mermaid eyes was the hulking Corlio’s surprised expression as he burst into flames. 

“The Doctor. He’s coming. We can’t just leave him.”

_He is flesh. He will burn._

“And change?”

_Perhaps._

 

FOUR WEEKS AFTER THE FIRE

Four weeks. Four weeks of agony in body and mind, twisted limbs, rotting flesh peeling from his bones. Penance, he'd called it. He'd suffered it without complaint. But now this. This might be taking things a little too far.

“You know me,” Rose laughed. “I can get used to anything.”

While it was like balm to his worried mind to hear her, the Doctor took exception to her chortling. “You think this is funny?” he squeaked, bleak eyes peering at the bottom of the free-standing mirror. “I'm a sprite, a pixie.”

“A little person,” Rose corrected, making no effort to contain her effervescent mirth. “And you're adorable.”

“I've got wings, fairy wings.” 

He fluttered them, craning his neck to look over his shoulder. Rose covered her mouth with both hands, but he could still hear her snickering as she rolled about on their bed. They still had a bed. For a moment, he wondered at that. Surely, he wouldn't dare to touch her again. Not after betraying her as he'd done. How much did she hate him? Fear him?

“Oh, my god," Rose cried in delighted realization, "you're Oberon."

"King of the Fairies," he mused. "So, your mum turned out to be right about me all along." 

Rose sobered, remembering Jackie Tyler for the first time in so very long. Considering her life now, her half-life, her mother had been right about a lot of things. Rose suddenly wished she could go back to their little apartment in London again. She would let Jackie brush her hair and make her some tea. A wave of melancholoy had her searching for something else to focus on, she returned her attention to the Doctor's fourteenth body, what there was of it.

"Makes a refreshing change from frightful old codger.” 

“At least people took me seriously,” he whined. “Thirteen was commanding, if bonkers. How am I supposed to strike awe into the hearts and minds of horrible monsters and alien hordes if I look like a lawn ornament?” 

“Maybe you've struck enough awe.”

“I'll need a step ladder to reach the controls.” He sank into a cross-legged heap of dejection and cradled his chin in one hand. “Some oncoming storm I am. More of a passing drizzle.”

“Oh, give it up,” Rose coughed, losing patience with him. “I'm not going to feel sorry for you. At least you've got a body. Look at me.”

He was trying not to look at her. Every time he did he felt like sobbing. She was a ghost again, because of him. It was all his fault. He'd trusted Jeffrey more than Rose. That made no sense. He'd hurt her and he wasn't sure how to make it right again.

“You didn't happen to make a subliminal suggestion did you? A whispered word in my vulnerable, regenerating ear and suddenly I am a garden gnome?” 

“Would that be before or after Corlio of the Borg started grinding me into fish sticks?”

Her tone was light, but he noticed the grim set of her jaw and decided he had pressed for enough sympathy. He should make the best of this cosmic joke at his expense. He was lucky Rose hadn't left him to die. She'd helped him escape, given him the strength to keep fighting. Then, she'd spent the last month nursing him, ordering the TARDIS to create a new Zero room. She'd helped his shattered mind to heal, watching over him as he struggled for sanity. And when he'd finally succumbed to those horrible burns, she'd helped him remember himself. But she hadn't forgiven him. Her show of good humor was just that, a show. 

“I'm so sorry. You can't imagine how very...” his words trailed away and he drew an unsteady breath. There were no words to bridge the gulf between them now.

Rose let her image take on a softer outline, hair flowing free and clothing loose, as she crossed the room to his side. She was very pretty, he thought, but she didn't look like Rose. Thankfully, she wasn't a mermaid either. He was fairly sure he couldn't have tolerated that. Her hair was black and bobbed, her face heart-shaped. She had a trim figure with long limbs. She appeared to be wearing jeans and an over-sized white tee shirt. Her feet were bare. He stared in some wonder at her pink toes. One of them sported a silver ring.

“You couldn't know what Jeffrey had planned.”

“I'm a Time Lord. Your husband. It's my job to know.”

“You weren't yourself...”

“I left you behind,” he snarled, his chin coming up and jutting forward. “Yell at me. Tell me I deserve to be small and ridiculous. Tell me you want to go home. We can't just..”

“This is my home,” she said, cutting him off. “Here with you. Leaving was never an option.” Jeffrey Morton's taunting words came back to haunt her. “Is that what you want? To be rid of me?”

“I went into that fire for you,” he said, cold bile splashed the back of his throat at the memory of it. He swallowed the bitterness and inhaled through his nose, holding the breath for a long time before slowly releasing it.

“This wasn't about you, Rose or Jeffrey," he said when he knew he could sound matter-of-fact about the past. "I wanted to feel like a Time Lord again,” he spread his hands wide, palms up. “The glory of it all. Rassilon. The majesty of the Citadel. My clan. My people. The thought of what I'd lost consumed me. My mind wouldn't work properly. I...it was wrong. Crazy. And I knew it, on some level. But I blamed you for everything.”

“It didn't make any sense.”

“The twelfth regeneration kills you or drives you mad.”

“The TARDIS explained about it, when you first started acting…peculiar.”

“Each regeneration leaves detritus, genetic debris and emotional baggage, all of it like poison, building up inside. Eventually, the poison takes over.” He tried to catch her eye but she stood and paced across the room. “I just don’t see how I could have believed in…Jeffrey's vision.”

“Well, I say this settles it; no more cute companions,” Rose said, lightly. She placed a hand over her heart. “Let’s take the pledge.”

“He nearly drove a wedge between us,” the Doctor mused, closing the distance between them. “I didn't think that was possible.” 

“Well, it's not, is it?” Rose said, edging away from him. “We're here and he's dead and good riddance.” The Doctor didn't smile. He didn't pursue her. He sat and stared steadily at her translucent face until she said, “It wasn't your fault.”

“It was.”

“We need to move past this. They didn’t hurt me. Not much.”

“Not physically,” he said.

She shook her head. “I killed them. The wolf inside me. It nearly killed you.”

“If I turn on you again...”

“Don't,” she said, her eyes glowing gold.

“...would you kill me?”

“Everyone dies, eventually,” Rose said, her word echoing in the walls. “Everything comes to dust.”

“I am flesh,” he said, remembering the TARDIS speaking in his head as it drew Rose back into its heart again. “And I burned.”

“I'm sorry,” Rose said, sounding like herself again. “You came back to save me. I knew you would and you did. Yes, you betrayed me,” she said, sinking to her knees to looking into his eyes. “Yes, it still hurts. But you know what I am, what I'm capable of...you knew I would survive. You were crazy. not stupid.”

“You think I knew...? Or hoped, the wolf would come? That the TARDIS would save you, so you could save me?” He thought about what had happened from that angle. Why hadn't he cut Rose's link to the TARDIS? “Maybe I just wasn't thinking clearly.”

“As soon as that...they started..." Rose's voice shook as she spoke. "Started cutting, as soon as I...” She shivered, squeezing her eyes closed for a moment, remembering the knives and the pain. He stretched out his hand to pet the nearest part of the TARDIS. He could feel his Rose there, under his fingertips and hoped she could feel him, too. The tender caress seemed to give her the strength she needed to go on. “Once the TARDIS understood I was going to suffer, she came to me. Through me. She lashed out. You...? You were caught in the fire...there was nothing I could do to spare you."

He swallowed hard. "You saved yourself," he said, "That's what mattered to me. That's what saved me, in the end."

"I don’t know how you made it off that ship alive.” She stared into the distance for a moment remembering him crawling to her as she appealed to him, inching along on his belly, burned beyond recognition but still fighting, still drawn to her by their mating bond. 

“Right," he declared with forced glee, cutting in on her gloom, "No more quests. No more adventures.” He stood up so abruptly his wings fluttered. “We'll go back to Maritinus. Visit Mary Alice and H'gnopp'i. Or Cardiff, early twenty-first century, go see Jack and Ianto. After we sort out a design for your new, new body, maybe we can buy that house. What do you say? Barcelona? A home by the sea might be nice.”

Rose shook her head. “I'm sick of being a fish. I think I would rather stay like this for a little while.” 

Her nerves got the better of her and she too stood, needing to put space between them. She didn't want to admit she was afraid of him. Refused to acknowledge it, even to herself. He looked harmless now, but looks, as they both knew were deceiving. It would take awhile, years perhaps, to really rebuild their trust. Being immaterial felt safer to her than any renewable flesh. She would never say it aloud, but she wasn't quite sure she knew him anymore. His mind seemed stable. But there were dark eddies still swirling in it, things hidden from her. The TARDIS had explained how the twelfth regeneration could poison all of the remaining ones. They needed to be sure he was the Doctor again.

“You're looking rather Audrey Hepburn,” he said, assessing her projected figure. “I like it.”

“Filleting is very slimming.” 

He winced and she immediately regretted the passive-aggressive joke. “Doctor, I didn't mean...I'm fine, truly.”

He swallowed hard, head down, but nodded. “I should have listened to you about Jeffrey.”

“Too right,” she said, brightly. With a smile firmly fixed to her lips, she went on, “You'll listen to me next time, I reckon.”

“I promise,” he said, finally screwing up the courage to meet her eye again. "I will never hurt you again, Rose."

“And if I get a bad feeling about someone, you boot them straight out the airlock, yeah? No putting it down to jealousy.”

“Out the airlock...oh, that reminds me,” he skittered across to his desk and rummaged through top drawer until he found a parchment scroll. “We found another TARDIS.”

Rose bristled. “We don't need a...”

“I think it belonged to the Master. And I managed to liberate this from its library.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.

“What is it?”

“A map of the Dark Stars,” he crowed, brandishing the scroll like a conductor's baton. “There's no better place to start looking for the Isolus than in the Silver Devastation. The Dark Stars are the galactic equivalent of a Sargasso Sea. The Bermuda Triangle. Our friend is out there somewhere, Rose, I can feel it. And when we find her, you'll be yourself again.”

“Assuming I even remember who I am,” Rose muttered. 

“I'll remember who you are. And you can remember who I am,” he said, heading for the exit. “Less work for both of us that way.” Grunting and huffing, he threw his shoulder against the door. He barely managed to shove his way out of the room. His wings fluttered, his feet scrambled for purchase and he uttered a string of colorful curses. 

“Language,” Rose reprimanded him, fighting the urge to giggle again. Had he taken this comical form on purpose, she wondered, to put her at ease? “Wish I could help you with that. Maybe we could get someone very muscular on board,” she suggested. “Someone fit to toss around monsters and open doors for you.”

“If you insist,” he gasped, leaning against the wall. “As long as this hypothetical someone has a beetled brow, poxy skin and a marked overbite, I see nothing wrong with him or her being brawny. Carrying on with our Brother's Grimm theme, I wonder if there are any psychic ogres looking for work. Well, not ogres, obviously, because ogres are mythical beings, but Y'Orgurus...the alien race responsible for the legend. Lovely people the Y'Orgurus...once they agree not to eat you.” Rose grinned at him. “What?” he asked, smiling slightly.

“Three hundred and seventy-six years, four regenerations, and you're finally back to babbling,” she answered. “I love it. And this big hair...marvelous.” She pretended to ruffle his fringe.

He tilted his head back and grinned so broadly that his eyes were mere slits. “Now that,” he said, beaming up at her, “that sounds like my Rose.” 

END THIS PART


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry. I had to split the previous chapter into two...so challenging issues and relationship changes continue. But things definitely take a turn for the better by the end of this part.

SOME TIME FURTHER ON...

“Oh, my head,” Rose moaned. 

Her ears rang and...

She was sticky...in all the wrong places...hot and cramped.

She sniffed, something smelled musty. Her nose wrinkled in disgust. Where was she? 

Her eyelids felt welded shut. She tried to lift her hand to her head but a fleshy weight seemed to be holding her arm down. She pried her eyes open and immediately wished she hadn't. Her view was limited to what she quickly realized was a masculine armpit. She grunted in alarm, flopping around and squirming backward as she struggled to free herself from a tangle of smelly nudity in what appeared to be a very crowded bed. Surfacing from the mound of nakedness to open air, she took her bearings and covered her nose. Even beyond the armpit the room had the reek of rent-by-the-hour motel. Crouching against the headboard of the bed, she examined the humanoid wreckage around her. They weren't exactly people. What were they?

As the room dipped and swayed, Rose groaned, “What was I drinking last night?”

“Qwarsh,” said a voice from the chair by the door. “It's called Qwarsh. It removes all inhibition. And I did warn you not to sample it.”

Rose breathed a sigh of relief and strained to focus on the figure in the chair. The Doctor. She barely recognized his voice but she did remember his new look. The room settled into an even wobble around her. She waited for it to completely stabilize, clinging to the headboard for dear life. When it did, she put a hand to the back of her neck and adjusted the manual override on her vision circuits. Her eyes focused and she got her first full view of the naked Time Lord sprawled in the chair. He had three equally nude humanoids draped over him. All of the people...drones, she remembered, they were called drones...pleasure drones. All of the drones on the floor and chairs and in the bed appeared to be sleeping the sleep of the utterly exhausted. The Doctor looked as fresh as a daisy might in a field of dead grass.

“Did I lose some sort of bet?” Rose asked.

“You won one,” he answered, grinning. “Don't you remember?

“I remember you regenerated,” Rose said.

“That was two months ago,” the Doctor told her. “Anything more recent?”

“There was a game of cards and...lights. Lots of glittery little lights.”

“And a band,” he said, “several bands, as I remember it. Several clubs, quite a few pleasure drones and a bottle of...”

“Qwarsh,” Rose said with him. She glanced up at the ceiling. “That's a really big mirror,” she said.

"The better to see yourself with?" The Doctor admired the lean cut of his relatively new figure. “I do like this new look, raffish, swashbuckling.”

Rose chewed her lower lip as she gave him a predatory once over. “Very Captain Jack,” she purred. “Not our Captain Jack...the other one. Sparrow. Johnny Depp, I mean.” A sudden snicker tickled her nose. Index finger pressed to her upper lip, hand tenting her mouth, she said, "Oh, no, it's the next title in our _Hamster and Otter Are Friends_ series...something like, I don't know... _The Terminator versus the Pirate King._

The Doctor raised an eyebrow as he considered this and his twenty-second regeneration. "Versus? Not very friendly, that. Sounds more like a summer blockbuster than a children's book... _T36: Back to the Caribbean._

His reflected image showed a deadly handsome man in his early thirties. The virility of the figure pleased him. He seemed and, indeed, was remarkably fit. He'd matched Rose drone for drone for several hours before she'd finally won their wager. And she had gantaluvium gears and dilithium power cells. Yes, all in all, he liked his newest body. 

It had magnificent thighs and taut biceps and a six-pack. His wavy, jet black hair fell to well-defined shoulders. A full, bow-shaped mouth softened his stronger features, like the piercing blue eyes which gave him a commanding air. Well, eye really, as one side of his face hadn't quite regenerated properly. But, no doubt the patch was what gave him his roguish appeal. And Rose seemed to be overlooking his scars. She was also overlooking the orgy. Since this wasn't like her, he tore his attention away from the mirror and watched her warily as she tumbled out of the bed.

“Careful of the ones on the floor,” he said. “Most of those are yours.”

“It's good to have hormones,” she said, doing a mental count of the pleasure drones she could see, “even if they are synthetic.” 

“That's what you said last night,” he remarked. He yawned and stretched again. “That is, once the Qwarsh moved you past your initial trepidation.”

Noticing a foot near her own, Rose bent to look under the bed for the rest of the alien sex worker. “How many are there, exactly?” 

“Twenty-two,” he said, smirking, “Coincidentally.” 

“And you are absolutely certain they, the...Apocritians,” she frowned, struggling to get her tired tongue around the name, “are fine with this arrangement? Nothing exploitative about it?”

“It would be cruel to wake them up to ask,” he said, “But we can, if you don't remember. Or,” he bobbed his chin toward a table, “You collected a stack of brochures about the Apisreoth System. Over there. Though you know I wouldn't ask you to take part in anything degrading to the people of this planet. I don't even like sex that much.” Rose snorted and he shrugged. “They're like Earth bees, hence the name of the system and species. Every individual is completely committed to breeding and service. And yet, there can only be one viable breeding pair per generation. All of our friends here were surplus, spares, literally nothing to live for but drudgery until we came along.”

“The perfect sex workers,” Rose mused, as she glanced around hoping to spot her clothes. “No chance of them wanting commitment or getting pregnant.”

“Not from me,” he said. “I don't have the right pheromones to trigger an ovipositor transformation.”

Rose made a derisive noise and said, “I mean because the queen is giving off those suppressor hormones. Nobody can reproduce but her.” She gave him a saucy wink, and then tapped her temple and added, “It's all coming back to me from the brochures.” 

While hunting for a bra to go with the knickers she'd located, she found the Doctor's discarded trousers and one of his boots. She carried the items to him. 

“Oh, and your people had a field day with that,” he said, “when they first discovered this planet. No responsibility nothing but fun, fun, fun.”

“Oi, they're not my people,” Rose said, standing over him. “I came here with you.”

“Humans, I mean,” he said, waving a dismissive hand. “You lot will have sex with anything bees, trees...appliances, whatever.”

“And mighty thankful you are for it, too,” Rose told him, dropping his shoe and trousers on the floor at his feet. “The things I've had to overlook,” she said, primly. Her fond glance took the sting from her complaint.

“I am nothing if not absurdly grateful for your unnatural appetites,” he said, beaming at her. Nodding, he went on with his explanations. “So, comes a few generations and the queen decides she could turn a profit via the sex trade and keep her people happy as well. No more honey gathering.”

“Did they gather honey before?”

“Figure of speech, early human settlers called the sex trade that though.”

Rose chortled. “Seriously? Honey gathering?”

“You are a people with a knack for euphemism. And I must say, you, personally, used to get a bit sticky.” 

“Ha,” Rose said, mouth lolling open in a wolfish grin.

“I think, before the Apisreoth system was discovered, the drones mostly tended the queen's children. Turning eggs. Feeding infants. Changing a hundred million nappies. They've got technology now and the queen doesn't need as many workers for that sort of thing. Speaking of what you've had to put up with, how long has it been since we...?” 

She stoked a thumb under her chin, head turning as she surveyed the crowded room. “Apparently, it was last night,” she said, blushing prettily. 

“Not counting pleasure drones,” he countered. “No matter how uninhibited we all were. It's not the same as you and I...alone, is it? Give us a hand with her,” he said, gently tipping one of his partners toward Rose. 

She held the woman at the elbows to keep her upright while the Doctor squirmed out of the chair. Twisting his hips, the Doctor eased free of the two redheads, one male and one female, still embracing him and stood. 

“Do you think she looks like me?” Rose said, her eyes narrowing as she studied the blond in her grip. “Like I used to look, I mean?”

“I suppose,” he said, covering a yawn as he cast a cursory glance at the surrogate body he'd used so freely last night. She meant nothing to him this morning. He ruffled both hands through his hair and then scratched at his scraggly beard. “Superficially. The lips. The hair.”

“She's not a blonde.”

“Neither were you.”

“And if she's the one with blue eyes, they're fake, too.” She assessed the female drone as they settled her back into the chair. “Not the only augmented thing on her, either.”

“Jealousy chip working properly, I see.”

“Shut up,” Rose said, playfully slapping at his arm. 

He laughed as he captured her in a tight embrace. Pressing their hips together, he ran his hands up and down her silky back. She felt so pliable, so human. His lips found her ear and he nibbled gently along the perfectly-sculpted shell of it. Almost immediately, her metallic skin lost its initial coolness. She turned molten in his arms. Within seconds she was ready for him, lithe and heated and wet.

“She dreamed of swans,” he said in a ragged whisper, his whole body prickling into arousal.

“Liar,” she snorted, pushing and squirming in a half-hearted attempt to escape. Her stuggling only made him hold on tighter, want her more. “I bet she's never even seen a swan.”

“I swear,” he said, hitting a falsetto note. “Or honking great waterfowl of some description. Purple instead of white or black,” he conceded with a wry tilt of the head. “Maybe they weren't technically swans, but...six of one.” 

"Half a dozen of another," she replied. 

He gave her a resounding kiss, and then released her so he could dress. She watched him wriggle into his trousers. “She isn't you, Rose,” he said. Craning his neck, he looked for an unoccupied place to sit. “You've ruined me for other women.” 

“Yeah, you look like a ruin,” she said, admiring his denim-clad backside as he bound over drones to reach a clear corner of the bed. 

He sat with care. Then, flashed a grin at her, as he stomped a foot into a boot. The other boot was close at hand and he recovered it. His offhand ease didn't make his words any less true. The pleasure drones might help him connect with Rose. They might look a little like she once had. But he didn't care about any of that. Not the sex or the look. He wanted his wife, needed her touch to keep him sane. 

None of the very talented, extremely enthusiastic surrogates in this room had satisfied him. He'd penetrated them, pleasured them, but only to get to Rose's mind. He'd needed a living body to hold, someone to squirm against him and take his arousal drug. But flesh held no allure for him while his wife was entombed in metal. She had synthetic flesh, a metal alloy with a neural network. It felt real enough but there was no nervous system, no synaptic links for his cnidocytes to connect with when they fired. Firing into nothing was agony for him.

Knowing this, Rose sighed and crossed to settled next to him, cuddling close. “I want it, too,” she said. “Touch.” 

“When was the last time?” he asked again. “Just us?”

“Not since that ion storm...eighty years? Ninety? I can't remember.” She pressed the heel of one hand to her brow, but shook her head. “I think the memory circuits in this thing are failing.”

“Time for an upgrade,” he said. “Just like me?”

“You know we can't use the storms,” she said with all seriousness. “The TARDIS took a beating last time. We can't keep doing that to her. The interface is falling apart as it is.”

“She's old. Nearly as old as I am.”

“You're not old,” Rose said, shifting around to slide across his leg into his lap. “Look at how fit you are.”

He snuggled into her, matching his breathing to the artificial rhythm of hers. Their lips met and they both gave contented hums. But after stroking his tongue along hers, he pulled back and said, “It's not as pleasurable for you, is it? Not like it was when you were alive?” She stared beyond his shoulder, silent for a moment. He twirled a ringlet of her hair around one finger. “It doesn't satisfy you.”

“Don't worry about me.”

He levered her away from him a little. Let her see the dark disappointment in his blue eyes. “But I do. You're my wife. More...you complete me.” His grip on her clenched tight. “You're...Rose. And I did this to you. If it hadn't been for me coming into your life, you'd be...”

“I'd be long dead,” Rose said. “Never forget that. I'd have married Mickey and lived a short, unfulfilled life. Is that what you think I deserve?”

“No, of course not.” He smiled crookedly. “Nobody 'deserves' Mickey.”

“Now, who's pointlessly jealous,” she laughed, poking his chest with a finger. His cnidocytes bristled and glowed. The sight of the display, made Rose want him intently. If only he could fire into her, link with her nervous system. She ran her tongue along the sharp edges of her teeth. “Oh, you could go again, couldn't you?”

He really couldn't, not with a surrogate sex drone, not so soon. “I'm fine,” he said, getting a grip on his instinctive response to her closeness. Rising, he sat Rose on her feet. “I just want to find that damned elusive Isolus, so you can feel again...really live.” Jaw clenching, he paced off his frustrations as well as he could while skirting sleeping pleasure drones. After a few stumbles, he halted and sighed. “But, I want to thank you for this.” He fanned a hand though the air to indicate the evidence of their night of debauchery. “And I thought I would never use a surrogate.”

“We both wanted this,” Rose reminded him. “I won the bet. It was wonderful to see you enjoy someone again. And the dreaming, it went beyond anything this metal flesh can feel. So fantastic," she sighed, "To be on Gallifrey, again. And then on Earth. To walk through the grass and see my mum. I was alive and whole and with you.”

He had his shirt in his hands. He twisted the collar. “You were with him,” he said, softly. “It's always him.”

Rose couldn't blush for real but she did turn pinkish and she felt the sting of shame in her cybernetic cheeks. Every Doctor tended to be jealous of her relationship with earlier incarnations. And it didn't help matters that she couldn't seem to let go of one particular face and form. 

“I know, I'm sorry. I...it'll be you, next time, I promise.” Her throat closed, catching her words. She cleared it and went on, “It's just that, he's the last one who really touched me. I know him so well. I know what he feels like under my hands. What his mouth can do. His...I just remember everything about him so clearly.”

“I wish I could go back to that for you. Be him again.”

“And I wish I could be her for you. Rose Tyler, shop girl.”

“We can try again with cybernetics,” he suggested. 

“If I got one of the new chameleon model, I could look human again, look like my old self.”

He could tell her heart wasn't in it. “Or we can search the Dark Stars, again.” Rose opened her mouth to protest, but he rushed on before she could deny him. “There's a map.” He cringed a little, ducking from an expected Rose-explosion. “It's here, in the Maritime Museum. No space pirates. No con games.” She didn't blow and her silence inspired him to press his advantage. “I heard one of the gamblers talking about it yesterday when I was scouting the hotels. I would have mentioned it sooner if you hadn't become so...uninhibited.”

“You want us to go back there? Follow another map?” she asked, an icy edge to her voice.

“This one is different,” he insisted. “It's from a research vessel.” He came over to stand before her. Gently he cradled her face and kissed her brow. Easing back, he met her eye. “It's been seen, Rose: the Isolus Swarm. Near Kasterborous.”

Rose jerked away from him. “Gallifrey?” she barked, one hand ripping down in a karate chop of the air. Her mercurial irises swirled as she confronted him. “No! Absolutely not.”

“All we have to do is find a way to navigate without instruments.”

“Oh, is that all,” Rose stormed, waving her arms around like she was swatting away flies. “And what about the TARDIS? You expect her to go back into that war zone. She can't tolerate it. You can't tolerate it. We barely made it out alive the last time. What if we lose her? Have you thought of that? Have you thought of where you and I will be if...”

“She's dying,” he blurted, gruffly cutting short her tirade. Rose checked her stride, nearly stumbling over a sleeping drone as she turned to face the Doctor. She was panting hard. Her eyes were wide and staring.“You know it as well as I do,” he continued in a patient voice. “You probably knew it first.”

Slowly, Rose nodded. “When did you...?”

“Does it matter? The TARIDS is dying, going to seed around us. And your life is linked to hers.”

“Your life is linked to her, too.”

He shook his head. “I could go on. But you die when she dies.”

“She can't die. She's not...flesh.” 

“When her systems fail, then. When the mechanical interface stops working and the Heart is free to leave. You will die, unless we find you a body before then. With no spare parts, no shop to fix her, we can't expect her to last much longer. And then, where will we be?”

“Lost,” Rose whispered. The word seemed to echo in the stuffy air as the Doctor nodded. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Lost,” the Doctor mouthed. The word was little more than a slight sigh. Rose had to crawl closer to hear him. 

“Hold on,” she croaked, her metallic fingers clutching for his hand as she collapsed. It had taken most of her remaining strength to reach his side. “If we die here...”

“If...?” He would have laughed, but he couldn't draw in enough air.

“...I love you,” she finished.

“You know...I do, too,” he gasped, “love you...even if...if we...live.”

Her head lolled, nearly slipping from his shoulder. “You're joking?” She couldn't believe it. “At a time like this?”

He smiled the thinnest of smiles and her spirits lifted just a bit. If she had to die, this is where she wanted to be. They lay side by side for a few minutes, neither able to move. Noxious black smoke billowed from the remains of the console. Mauve light strobed across the ceiling. Sirens sounded. There was a hissing noise as the breathable atmosphere bled slowly into space. The leak wasn't slow enough for any hope of rescue. The hiss grew fainter by the second. 

They'd been flying blind through Kasterborous, navigating around the temporal whirlpools of the Dark Stars, when something collided with them. The Doctor was sure he hadn't miscalculated their position. Either their map was wrong or something spatially transcendental—planetary debris, a warhead or another ship from the Time War had smashed into them. It hardly mattered where they placed the blame. They were doomed. This was how their story ended, in the cold vacuum of space.

The TARDIS was dying and so was her Time Lord. The Cloister Bell had already tolled his passing. Rose could feel him slipping away into the dark as she struggled to sit up and help him. She tried to staunch the flow of blood. He couldn't die. She wasn't ready to let go of him. But then, she would never be ready. And it wasn't as if she would outlive him by more than a few minutes. With no power to sustain her, once the TARDIS died, so would Rose. There had to be a heaven for her Doctor, a place where he could rest. He deserved that and living without the hope of it, even for those few minutes, would be hell for her. An irritating series of beeps sounded and Rose glanced toward the inner door, wondering what the noise signified.

“Rose?” the Doctor gurgled, drawing her attention back to their personal tragedy. The wound in his chest bubbled dark blood when he spoke. “I...I...can't...regenerate.”

She knew already. There would be no new body for him this time. He was too weak, barely out of his last regeneration cycle. They'd been running and fighting every minute since then. He didn't have the strength to change again so soon. With the exception of Rassilon, the Doctor had lived longer than any of his kind, almost two thousand years. He didn't have the strength to go on any more. And he couldn't go on without the TARDIS in any case. Not if there was no hope of rescue, eventually he would die without air or heat. They were a lost cause, all three of them--an ancient wreck of a TARDIS, an obsolete Time Lord and a woman who by all rights should have died nine hundred years ago. 

“Save your strength,” she told him, gathering him into her arms. “I've sent the signal. Maybe this time it will come.”

“Too late.”

“We should never have come here,” Rose growled. “It was too great a risk.”

“Tired,” he gasped. “I'm so, so tired.”

“You can rest soon,” she said. “We can both rest.” She glanced toward the monitors. “Do you think it's out there? Assuming it even heard us, how long will it take to get here? An hour? A day?” Too late. 

“The coordinates...”

“That computer was a relic. Every second line of data was corrupted. Even if those scientists did see something...we don't know what it was. We don't know if you programmed the right coordinates.”

“Faith,” he managed to croak. She looked into his eyes and he held her hand. For once, they didn't need flesh to be mind-to-mind, both of them apologized, regretting they'd waited so long to call for help. He lifted a hand to her metallic cheek. “Let me see...her,” he said. 

Why had she wanted to feel again? “I can't,” she said, weeping. The tears she shed were as artificial as the eyes that produced them. “There's not enough power for my chameleon circuits.” It twisted into her soul that she couldn't let him look on her human face one last time. “I'm sorry.”

“No...we had to try,” he said, sounding stronger. “Keep going, keep fighting to the end. Everything ends. All things...come to dust.” Pulling on his last reserves of strength, he sat up to face her, his fingertips traced over her cheek. “No regrets, Rose. No...” His breath rattled and he slumped to the floor. The TARDIS screamed.

Rose screamed, too. Denial raw in her throat. It wasn't fair. It wasn't. It couldn't end this way. The final regeneration fire started to consume him even as she felt for his pulse. Maybe he could come back to her one more time. Hope and despair warred in her breast. The strange alarm sounded again. 

The monitors flashed a warning: IMMINENT COLLISION. 

beep  
beep  
beep

beep  
beep  
beep

Not again. They couldn't handle another hit. They needed to get out of the way. Rose stood, staggering toward the console. Something was headed straight for them. The backup power failed as she reached the controls, casting the room into absolute blackness. Rose switched to infrared vision and started flipping switches. The sensors were dead, every monitor, every light. The TARDIS had no idea what was about to hit them. Something massive grated against the outer door. The impact bucked Rose off her feet.

“What the hell was that?” she demanded of the TARDIS via their mental link. “Let me see it. Damn it, patch me through to the outer links.”

The TARDIS tried to comply. She fed Rose a scramble of fuzzy images via their connection. Rose got an impression of a living entity, mass and power. Whatever was outside seemed to be opening a great maw to swallow them whole. It dwarfed the police box, like the whale that swallowed Jonah. 

“It looks like her. It has to be. Is it...? Is it her? Let me see. We have to ask her the question. We have to...”

The ship quaked, tossing Rose sideways. Via the door in her mind, Rose felt reality lose relevance for the Heart of the TARDIS. It had no more to give to time or space. The alien soul slipped free of the mooring line holding it anchored to the Doctor's ship. Rose felt the living mind of the TARDIS glide away from corporeal constraints. The door in her mind, shrank to the size of a window, a pea, a pinprick. The Heart was eternal, not subject to the rules of reality. Rose knew the Heart would continue to exist between realities, but this really was the end of the TARDIS. 

The interface, grown not built by the long dead Time Lords, was a husk. It had no life force left, no internal power and no Heart at its core. There was nothing to sustain the coral shell. The ship tumbled, losing its center of gravity. Rose tried to claw her way back to the Doctor, but lost her grip and fell a very long way before she cracked her head on a piece of the metal safety railing.

Her sensors went dark.

10 MINUTES LATER

The proximity alarm sounded again. Words flashed neon pink on the inside of Rose's eyelids.

IMMINENT COLLISION!  
IMMINENT COLLISION!  
IMMINENT COLLISION!

beep  
beep  
beep

“Alright, alright,” she grumbled, slamming a hand down on the snooze button. “I'm awake. I'm up.” 

She pushed covers from her face and yawned, stretching as she sat up. Cold air swept along her back. Prying her eyes open, she blinked as morning sunlight contracted her pupils. She cast aside rosebud-printed, flannel sheets and mounds of fluffy comforters and swung her feet to the floor. The cold wood underfoot made her wince. Mornings were getting frigid. It would be worth it if they could have snow for Christmas. She arched her back in another stretch, feeling languidly satisfied with the world. 

Noting her slippers, peeking out at her from the beneath the bed, she leaned over to retrieve them. Once her toes were cozy, she stood and shuffled to the end of the bed for her robe. She drew the wrap from the foot board and snuggled into its warmth. Toasty again, she padded over to the window and looked out. No snow. No frost. Pale sunlight filtered through the gauzy curtains. Dewdrop diamonds sparkled in the grass outside. It was a lovely brisk September day out.

But something nagged at the back of Rose's mind. It felt like she was forgetting an important appointment. Or maybe there was something off about the view. Had something been moved? The lawn furniture? She combed a hand through her hair and leaned against the window frame. Her eyes swept the yard again. She couldn't quite place what it was that was bothering her. Something missing, maybe? 

She looked toward the Doctor's workshop. Everything seemed secure there. He'd left the hoe out again. It was sure to rust if they had another rain. But a rusty hoe was no cause for alarm. She examined the fence that constrained her herb garden. Nothing amiss. Nothing obviously wrong with the bird feeders or the birdbath. Beyond the back gate, the woods seemed much the same, silver leaves catching the morning sun. Nothing seemed to be out of place. Shaking her head, Rose turned back to survey the room, admiring its cheerful country cottage ambiance as if seeing it for the first time. 

She loved this room. It was her second favorite in the house. The Doctor's library was her absolute favorite, but only because he was so often there. She'd picked out the furniture for this room and the rose-patterned curtains and bed linens. Rose's could be overdone and she had made sure they were tastefully discrete. She loved the carved cherry wood of the wardrobe. All of her dress clothes, suits and blouses, were lined up on one side and his were on the other. She crossed to the wardrobe, opened the door and ran her fingers down the sleeve of his brown suit jacket. The worn cotton felt wonderfully soothing to her. Suddenly daring and needing to feel closer to him, she shed her robe and pajamas. Stripped to her knickers, she slipped on his jacket. It caressed her skin, reminding her of his hands, his mouth. 

Her nipples squeezed into rigid sensitivity as she stepped back to admire herself in the dresser mirror. The jacket fit snuggly across her chest and shoulders. She stroked her hands down the front of it, smoothing it over her belly and hips. Her hips were too wide. The white lace of her knickers flashed when she rocked from foot to foot. She cocked her head, turning this way and that to see how she looked from all angles. Her hair was a rat's nest and wrinkles from the sheets creased her cheeks. But she felt sexy in his clothes and wanted to show off for him. The very idea of parading before him like this made her ache between her legs. She grimaced as she grew slippery wet. Too many teeth, she thought, baring them again in a broad smile. She caught the reflection of movement behind her and turned. A robin settled on a feeder outside the window. It pecked at the suet she'd put out fresh yesterday.

No, that was wrong. Yesterday, there'd been...none of this. There'd been blood and smoke and...twisted metal. Yesterday...she'd had metal skin and...something had swallowed them.

IMMINENT COLLISION!

beep

beep

beep

TO BE CONTINUED...


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And, at long last, we come to the final part. The Doctor and Rose wake up in a place far removed from the chaos of their damaged TARDIS and last gasps. Are they dead? Is this the Elysian Fields or something a lot more scientific...assuming the Who-verse has specific physics attached to it. I do hope you enjoy the ending. Please let me know in comments if you do.

IMMINENT COLLISION!

beep

beep

beep

“Rose?” the pile of comforters and blankets whined. “Make it stop beeping. It's not fair to let it go on beeping after you're already up. I don't get to sleep very often and...” 

That voice, she hadn't heard that voice in a thousand years. “Doctor?” she gasped, staggering to the side. 

The floor tilted under her feet as a rush of fear and hope and wonder made her dizzy. She put a hand out to the dresser edge to keep from falling over. This was wrong. Impossible. It couldn't be him. He was dead. Centuries dead. She glanced over her shoulder. That woman in the mirror...blond hair, dark brows, generous mouth...she was dead, too. 

Even as she denied his existence and her own, the snooze alarm beeped again and the Doctor exploded from the bed. Sheets and comforter went flying as he sprang from within them. His navy blue pajamas had a gold pocket-watch print on them. An unruly mass of brown hair stood straight up in spikes on his head. His dark eyes flashed as he grinned and cocked a brow at her. 

“Hello?” he said, beaming ear to ear. 

Before she could respond, he skipped around the bed to her side of it and yanked the alarm from the wall. He tossed the clock into the wastebasket, dusted off his hands, and then stiffened. Very slowly he turned to squint at her. 

“It's you!”

“Me?” she said, accusingly. “It's you!”

He took a half-step forward, and then, apparently as dizzy as she'd been, grabbed at his temples and sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Oh, no, no, no! It's you...you,” he said, focusing on her. He pointed emphatically at the mirror behind her, shaking his finger. “Look at you.” Then, he shifted his perspective and stared open-mouthed at his own reflection. He hopped up onto his knees. Kneeling on the bed, he leaned forward to clutch the footboard with both hands “No, look at me.” Wonder flooded his face. “Look at us.” 

Rose watched him pat his face, and then tug at his hair. He grimaced at the mirror, mugging as he touched two fingers to his lips. He curled his upper lip to expose his teeth and appeared to count them with the tip of his tongue.

“I was sleeping,” he said, twisting at the waist to assess the rumbled bedding. “No! I was dead. Dying, at any rate. Rose?”

“Yes,” she confirmed, nodding as she moved closer to him. “I remember, too. The blood and smoke.”

“We took a direct hit. The console exploded and something,” he pantomimed the spike driving into his chest. His mouth dropped open again as his eyes lost focus. “I was slipping away...so cold...holding your hand.”

“I tried to save you.”

“But you couldn't. You didn't have the power. Even the TARDIS was dying.” Rose nodded mutely. The Doctor's mind returned to the present and his gaze swept the room. “And now, we're here.”

“Are we dead?”

His bottom lip pouted into fullness as he considered the notion. “I don't feel dead. Do you?”

“What does dead feel like?” Rose asked, closing the remaining distance between them. “We must be. How could we survive? Maybe...maybe we're dreaming.”

“Maybe we are,” he agreed, meeting her eye. “If this is our last shared dream, we might only have a few seconds left.” 

As the grim reality of it sank in, they launched themselves at one another. Rose gave a mewling cry of alarm as she seized his face in both hands and brought her mouth to his. His lips felt warm and soft under hers. She forced them apart, eager to taste him. He groaned, yielding to her tongue. His hands clawed their way to her skin, sliding up under his jacket. Once they were flesh on flesh, he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her down into the warm nest of bed covers. 

His fingers found the waistband of her knickers and peeled the lacy cloth from her as they skimmed under it. Gripping the curves of her bare bottom with both hands, he encouraged Rose to plunder his mouth by teasing her tongue with his own. She stroked her fingers through his hair and squirmed and he broke from her lips to whimper her name. Rolling her to her back, he straddled her hips and began frantically unbuttoning his pajama top. Rose struggled to free herself from the tangle of his jacket. 

“Not dead,” she gasped. “Not yet. Oh, god...this...can't be happening...it's just so....oh, Doctor.”

Tiny darts fired into her bared skin as he returned to her arms. She arched under him, clawing at his shoulders, reveling in the exquisite mix of pain and pleasure. This was living. She hadn't felt this alive, this hungry, in centuries. There were tears of joy on her cheeks. Real tears. She tasted salt as they reached her lips. The mating drug filled her vision with pastel colors. A dreamlike lassitude relaxed her limbs. Her Doctor entered her mind. He was here with her and everything—the joy, the drug in her system, his tender kisses—all of it felt so real. He was at her throat, sucking on it like she was hard candy, when the knock came at the window. Lost in each other, they ignored the noise, but it came again, louder.

The latch was thrown on the window and a voice said, “Oh, I say, this is hardly the time for that. Not just now, if you don't mind. In case you haven't noticed, we've got a rather nasty problem on our hands.”

“Go away,” the Doctor snarled, close to Rose's ear.

He went on kissing her throat as she tilted her head back to look at whomever had spoken. Taking in the upside-down view of a short, disheveled man crawling through into her bedroom, Rose gave a gurgle of surprise. Her Doctor muttered a series of curses aimed at his "ridiculous" subconscious. He accused it of worming in on his one shot at a happy ending even as Rose began to twist and squirm, scrambling for something to cover her nakedness. She refused to let his grumbling discourage her efforts. They were completely exposed, in the middle of the bed and some clown was breaking into the house. Wait. She poked into the corners of her memory as she squinted again at the intruder. 

Clown seemed like the appropriate term. He had a droopy moroseness about him. His deeply lined face seemed neither young nor old, only well used. He looked worn, like a wool coat found under a table at a yard sale. A bowl-cut style made the most of his thick brown hair, giving it shine and swing. His over-sized and rumpled collar dwarfed a tiny polka-dotted bow tie. The hobo clown impression was definitely carried along by his baggy trousers and tailed morning coat. Something about him seemed very familiar, but Rose was certain she'd never seen him before. Not with these eyes, she realized suddenly, unconsciously quoting the Doctor. She'd seen him through the filter of sensors or cameras. Or in a dream. Yes, that was where she knew him from, shared, drugged dreams.

There was a slight catch of uncertainty in her voice. “Doctor?”

“Yes, very likely,” the newcomer said. His voice had a tremor behind it as if he were perpetually quivering with excitement. Pulling a huge hankie from a pocket, he acted out mopping his brow and dusting himself off as he spoke. “I believe I should know you young lady, but I don't quite recall ever having had the pleasure. We haven't been formally introduced, I think. Though I seem to remember you popping up in the library once upon a time. You were wearing--”

Rose's Doctor shot to his knees and bellowed, “Get! Out!” 

“There's no need to shout,” the other Doctor said. “I can hear you perfectly clearly at this distance. I am simply ignoring you. Not easy to do, I might add, when you are spouting cnidocytes like a startled jellyfish. Put some clothes on, man.” A clatter of stones against the side of the house drew everyone's attention to the window again. Someone else was crawling through. “Oh, Jamie, best cover your...”

A strapping lad in full Highland regalia--kilt, sporran and leather vest--clambered into the room. 

“I don't know that ye've noticed,” he exclaimed, adjusting his clothing, “but there's a barescud-nakit lass on that bed, Doctor!” 

“...eyes,” the other Doctor, finished on a sigh. 

“Oh, aye!” 

Blushing as red as the plaid he sported, the young man obediently closed his eyes. Then, he covered them with one hand and turned his back. Rose couldn't help smiling at the excessive gallantry. She'd forgotten how endearing James McCrimmon could be. Her Doctor didn't seem at all moved by the young Highlander's show of respect. Head down, he furiously buttoned and cinched himself back into his pajamas. Then, he rolled over Rose to the edge of the bed and dropped to the floor. Lithe as any acrobat, he twisted mid-tumble, so he landed on his feet. He sprang forward, grabbed the other Doctor by his collar and propelled the little man across the room. While Rose fought the urge to giggle, her Doctor attempted to shove himself back out the window, despite Jamie effectively blocking the opening as he stood blindly in the way. 

“Out. Right now. Both of you. Out!”

“Ow! Let go, you impertinent rascal.”

“I will not have my bothersome former selves critiquing my last moments like busybody maiden aunts.”

“Well,” said a deep and reasonable voice at the door. “If that's how you treat our maiden aunts, it's small wonder we only get five pence for Christmas.”

Rose gasped and jerked upright, clutching the sheet to her breast. There was another Doctor in the room. This one was as tall and rangy as the first was short and muscular. He wore a floppy hat, an endless scarf and a ridiculously broad grin. Behind him, peering around his left shoulder, was a woman Rose recognized, but had never expected to see again.

“Sarah Jane!” Rose cried. 

The newly arrived Doctor smiled down at his companion and, sounding as pleased as a cat with a belly full of cream, said, “Why so it is!”

Rose was out of the bed and moving forward before she remembered her nakedness. The sheet pulled her up short. She turned back to wrestle with it for a moment, giving everyone a fine view of her bare backside. “How did you...? Damn, this thing. Sorry, I'm...we were just, oh...!” She went on rambling incoherently as she wrenched the sheet free of its moorings. Wrapping the rose-printed cotton around under one arm, she knotted the sheet at her shoulder, toga fashion. “Would you look at me!”

“You?” Sarah Jane exclaimed, elbowing her Doctor aside. “Look at me. I'm young,” she said, holding up her arms and rotating them for Rose to inspect. “Not a wrinkle. Not a single age spot.” 

As Rose reached her, the two women embraced. “The last time I saw you, you were....” She didn't want to say it.

Sarah Jane, however, had no problem with the word. “Dying? Then it wasn't a dream,” she said.

Just as Jamie blurted, “And me. I was dying for certain.” Gingerly lifting his hand from his face, he cracked one eyelid to peer at them. Noting Rose's makeshift dress, he relaxed out of his rigid stance, opening his eyes with a sigh of relief. “Took a crossbow bolt through the leg. Had the fever. Last thing I remember was a powerful thirst and me too weak to stand or swallow. And I'm here.”

“And you,” Sarah Jane exclaimed, clutching at Rose's elbow. “You've come back.”

“We need to sort this out. Think it through,” Rose's Doctor said as he stroked the flat of his hand along his jaw.

“I was in hospice in London?” Sarah Jane began thoughtfully. Rose nodded. “You came to visit me. You and the Doctor. I remember. They said I only had a few days left. What happened next?” 

“I...we don't know,” Rose said. Her uncertain glance instinctively sought her Doctor's face. He looked positively thunderous, but he had abandoned his effort to throw himself out the window.

“But it must have something to do with the Doctor,” Sarah Jane insisted. “And it's never good having two of them in the same place.”

“Three,” Jamie's Doctor sniffed. He gave Sarah Jane a pained look. “We have been introduced, young lady.”

“Oh,” Sarah Jane said, blushing as she nodded, “Oh, of course, in the Tomb of Rassilon.”

“In the Death Zone?” the fourth Doctor asked, obviously perplexed. Then, he brightened with recollection. “Yes, of course, the Game of Rassilon. Poor mad Borusa.” He puffed a dramatic pout at Sarah Jane. “You said I was all teeth and curls.”

“And so you are,” Sarah Jane chuckled, soothing him with an indulgent pat.

The newest Doctor's arrival had calmed Rose's Doctor considerably. He strode over to Rose and Sarah Jane. His fourth self stepped forward, too. They squinted at each other. They grimaced and gaped and both scratched their heads, mirroring one another's movements. Ten lost interest in the game and turned his attention to Sarah Jane. Taking her by both shoulders, he maneuvered her this way and that, examining her intently. 

“You died,” he told her. Rose scowled and shook her head at him, but he went heedlessly on, “We attended your funeral.”

“Then she's crossing her own time line,” Jamie's Doctor said, bustling busily forward, his brows disappearing under his fringe. “We'll need to get her back where she belongs before--”

Rose's Doctor prodded Two's shoulder. “You feel real enough. But this could still be a--”

“Yes, yes,” Sarah Jane's Doctor inserted, leaning into the conversation. “It could be sexual, I suppose. The dreaming seed. Assuming you two get up to that sort of thing.” He grinned down at Sarah Jane. “Do they, do you think? Get up to that sort of thing?”

“I'm rather afraid they do,” Sarah Jane said, dryly.

“I always was a dasher with the ladies,” Sarah Jane's Doctor remarked. Rose noted he had a funny way of mouthing his words as he spoke them so they came out a little mushy. He flashed an impossible number of teeth. “But we hadn't ought to assume, as the mouse said to the milkmaid. Tell me more about this dying business. I've tried it once or twice myself, but it never seemed to take.”

Sarah Jane snickered a little, obviously very pleased to see him. But she quickly focused her mind to the task of explaining. “I was old,” she said, “so old.” She touched fingertips to her unlined face. 

“Ninety-seven,” Rose supplied. “It's the background radiation. It protects the immune system from...everything.”

“Yes, never mind about the immune system,” Four gently admonished. “Go on, Sarah Jane.”

“It sounds silly to say it, but...there was a light, calling to me. Just like happens in films and things. And something else. A...a singing in the dark.”

“Singing? What sort of singing?” all three Doctors exclaimed as one. 

“Like a choir,” Jamie said, nodding as he joined the conversation again, “a thousand voices uplifted in a hymn, all singing at once.” 

Sarah Jane agreed, “Yes, exactly like in church.”

The second and fourth Doctors put their hands in their trouser pockets and rocked up onto their toes. Ten tried to do the same but his pajama bottoms had no pockets. He looked down at his bare feet and wiggled his toes. All of the Doctors appeared to be lost in thought. 

“The Cruciform?” Two supposed.

“Could be...could be,” Sarah Jane's Doctor mumbled, cocking a brow at his elder and younger selves. “Any other ideas?”

“It was destroyed,” Ten said. He didn't bother to elaborate.

“The TARDIS sings,” Rose said. “In my head. Sometimes.”

“You know what's so very odd?” Sarah Jane turned to look back the way she'd come. “There was light, as I said, and singing. And then I was outside this house. And...I can't explain how, but...somehow, I knew where I was. Not really. Not what city or planet I was on. But the way you know things in a dream. I knew this was your house, Rose.” She repeated her friend's name. “Rose? You're alive. I'm--alive!” She looked in the mirror, one hand stroking the flawless skin exposed by the neckline of her blouse. “And look at me, not a day over twenty.”

Rose looked at her. Then, she looked toward her Doctor. As their eyes met, his jaw jutted stubbornly forward, his chin lifting a little. He seemed to be grinding frustration between his teeth.

“Bringing the dead back to life,” Rose reminded him. “We've seen this before.”

His brows arched as he tilted his head. “Life from the inanimate. If people can become pictures...?”

“The Isolus,” Rose said. “It has to be.”

“You sent the signal?”

“I tried,” she said. “I think it responded. There was something outside just before I lost consciousness. Something massive. The proximity alarms were sounding. There was a beeping.” 

She glanced at the bedside clock. A shudder rocked her body and she felt suddenly faint. The floor tilted under her. Hand pressed to her temple, she staggered sideways. All three Doctors surged around her. Solicitous and gentle, they cooed and cuddled her. Two and Four took her by the forearms, bracing her from the elbows. Her Doctor slid his arm around her waist and guided her to a seat on the edge of the bed.

“Dizzy?” he asked.

Though she was, Rose shook her head. “This is wrong. None of it can be real.”

“Couldn't get any wronger,” he agreed, settling beside her. “But don't worry about it for a minute or three. You're just having a delayed reaction to the drug in your system. How many fingers do you see?” he asked, holding up two before her.

“Fingers?” Rose said, her eyes unfocused. Her Doctor tucked her head in under his chin, rocking her against him as his lips brushed over her hair.

“What's an Isolus?” the second Doctor asked into the long pause that followed Rose's dizzy spell.

“An ion being,” the fourth Doctor said in soft answer. “Harmless for the most part. They float about, occasionally frightening space travelers.” He glanced around the room. “Theoretically, powerful enough to create all of this out of digested energy particles. But why do it?”

Rose's Doctor also spoke in a quiet, modulated manner, his hand still gently stroking her shoulder. “When it was very small and very lost, we helped it find its way home.”

“It's paying a debt of honor, then?” Jamie surmised.

“Unlikely,” the fourth Doctor said. “The Isolus are elusive and, as far as I've every heard, completely unresponsive to requests from other species.”

Rose recovered enough to give sit up straighter. She gave a slight nod. “And I never got to ask it for help. The communication systems failed.”

Ten smiled at her and took over the story. “The plan was to find the Isolus and ask it to restore Rose to corporeal form. It owed us a favor. We hoped to collect. The TARDIS had the necessary DNA coding, but she didn't have the power to manifest a permanent body. We needed a virtually unlimited power source in order to extract Rose from the interface systems that were maintaining her lifeforce. And we knew the Isolus was able to create living beings, whole imaginary worlds, from ionic energy.”

“Imaginary worlds like this one?” Sarah Jane exclaimed.

“What do you mean, 'extricate'?” the second Doctor yelped. “What have you been doing to my TARDIS?”

“You planned to ask the Isolus to make you a new body,” Sarah Jane said, working things out. 

“Out of ionic energy,” Rose confirmed, nodding. “Yeah.”

“What a clever idea.”

“Well,” the fourth and tenth Doctors chorused as one, “I've always been clever.” Four beamed over the synchronization. Ten winked and clicked his tongue. 

“A new body?” Jamie asked, blushing again as he remembered the scene he'd witnessed on arrival. “Were you a ghostie, then, lass?”

“The ghost in the machine,” the tenth Doctor said. Mouth slightly ajar, he leveled a speaking glance at both of his other selves. “The ghost,” he stressed. “All along. Since the beginning.”

“Oh, I see,” the second Doctor said. His face fell. “Then, my TARDIS is...?”

“Gone,” Ten confirmed.

“It's a long story,” Rose murmured with an apologetic cut of her eyes to indicate this was no time for long stories. 

“Two thousand years of story,” her Doctor said with sigh. He smiled at Rose and whispered. “Your head should clear in a few minutes.” Then, he stood and started for the door. “I'm afraid we do need to investigate further.”

“So, here we are, figments of your imaginations,” Sarah Jane's Doctor said, falling into step with his older and younger selves. “I don't feel imaginary. But then do the shadows on the cave wall know that they are shadows?”

With a bark of mirthless laughter, Ten spun around to face the other two Doctors. “Philosophical riddles?” he sneered. “Quite right. How typical. Let's all sit around and contemplate our navels and creation and the little balls of lint in the dryer trap. I'm sure pondering philosophical questions will keep us all busy on those cold winter evenings ahead. But, at this precise moment, just now...has it occurred to either of you that everything I had, everything I was, disintegrated a few moments ago? I've lost my ship and my bearings. And I haven't touched my wife in a thousand years.”

“Looked at from another angle, we've all just lost everything,” said a new voice from the doorway. “Death comes to all, but great achievements build a monument which shall endure till the sun grows cold. Or your planet evaporates, whichever comes first. And some of us never got to properly touch our wife.” 

Rose glanced toward the door and shivered as a pair of sparkling blue eyes met her wondering gaze. The mobile mouth below the eyes wore a manic grin. 

“I do love philosophy,” the ninth Doctor said in his broadest Northern drawl. He pinched thumb and fingers together on each hand together and gleefully exclaimed, “All those little theories bouncing around, making things happen!”

“Last night I dreamed I was a frog,” Jack Harkness bombastically declared, as he strode through the door. “Or more accurately a big head in a glass tank full of smoke. Point is, I had very serious complexion issues. And when I woke up I didn't know if I was a man who dreamed he was a giant face in a tank or a giant face in a tank who was now dreaming--” He broke off with a grunt; staggered by Rose's unchecked forward momentum.

She had launched herself from the bed with a heartfelt cry of delight the second she'd heard Jack's voice. Unstable on her pins, she'd staggered across the room in a drunken series of lurches, intent on throwing herself into someone's arms. Nine sprang forward to catch her around the waist before she and Jack could collapse to the floor. 

He gave her an enthusiastic whirl. Rose seemed perfectly content to hug him first and Jack second. Arms about his neck, she lavished him with heated kisses, only letting go to transfer her attentions to the recovered Jack. The knots of her toga slipped loose as she clambered from Time Lord to Time Agent. The sheet started to slide down her back, but Ten reached her before she was completely exposed. Prying her away from both newcomers, Ten wrapped her up in the sheet again as he hugged her close to his chest and glared at his apparent rivals.

“None of that,” he warned, shifting his grip to contain the squirming Rose.

“It's you,” she happily declared, wriggling like an affectionate puppy as she tried in vain to reach Jack again. He obliged her by coming closer. “And you.” The ninth Doctor also closed the gap between them. “And you are both so fit and alive and....” She gave a heartfelt little growl as her hand squeezed Jack's bicep. She stroked her other hand under the ninth Doctor's leather jacket as he bent to kiss her.

“Oi,” the tenth Doctor said, lifting Rose's feet from the floor and swinging her away from the ninth Doctor's lips. “My wife. Mine.”

“Our wife,” Nine corrected, as if addressing a particularly dense child. “Ours.” He leaned into Rose and murmured, “Is he always so possessive?”

“Oh, yes! It was such fun. And this? This is so...it's just....” 

“Fantastic?” Nine suggested, smirking.

The lingering aphrodisiac in Rose's system, combined with the proximity of her favorite fantasy men, sent her thoughts in a naughty new direction. The mystery of what caused them all to be here was momentarily forgotten. There was definitely one thing she wanted more than answers. If she could have all three of them at the same time, she wouldn't care what was going on in this strange new world. Rose felt her nipples contract and tilted her head back so it lolled against her Doctor's shoulder, her other Doctor. Damn, it was getting confusing in here. If any more Doctors showed up, Twenty-two or Eleven or...she wouldn't know what to call them. 

“We're going to have to start using numbers,” her Doctor said, easily reading her mind in such close quarters. “Just like in the dreams.”

“Do you think they are all here? Every Doctor? Everyone we've ever known?” Her face lit up with a happy realization. “Mickey? My mum and dad?”

“Doesn't sound much like Heaven to me,” Sarah Jane said. “Or maybe I just know a lot of disagreeable people.”

Ten went completely still, color draining from his face. His distress acted like a splash of cold water down Rose's back and she lost a good measure of her own sparkle. They both knew some very disagreeable people, as well. The Doctor, for example, could be a very disagreeable person.

Rose's libido switched off, as if someone had thrown a switch on it. Extracting herself from the tangle of Ten's embrace, she took a step back, retied and smoothed her bed sheet toga. This was no time to be thinking about orgies. Ten continued to look queasy. His mirrored reflection caught his eye and, after a long pause to study the man he now was, he turned again to Rose, his expression pensive. His tongue worried at the inside cheek of his open mouth. It took Rose less than a heartbeat to understand the haunted expression on his face. If every Doctor had been reincarnated, there could be serious trouble brewing.

“Thirteen,” she said, hollowly.

Her Doctor swallowed hard, tugging at his collar like it felt too tight. “And Jeffrey,” he said.

“What about...Them?” Two asked, his tone leaving no doubt he was talking about the Time Lords. “They forced me to regenerate. They found me guilty of meddling. Me!”

“They're gone,” Nine said, exchanging a glance with his next incarnation, “Like the Cruciform, like the Citadel and the Matrix.”

“Gone? What do you mean gone?” the Second Doctor huffed, scowling at Nine. “They don't go anywhere. If only they would go, the universe would be a better place, I think.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. Rose opened her mouth to speak, but it was Sarah Jane who said sharply, “They all died. Gallifrey was destroyed.”

“Destroyed?” Two whispered, not comprehending. “But...but...?”

Four believed. He stumbled to the bed and sat down. His breathing labored, he gazed into the middle distance, trying to envision it. “How?” he finally asked. 

“There was a war,” Rose answered, knowing that even now her two Doctors couldn't speak of it easily.

“The Sontarans?” Four asked.

“The Daleks. We lost.”

“But they can't be gone,” Two argued. “Not all of them. They don't go, do they? They just sit there, moldering at the end of time. Even the ones you think you've gotten rid of keep coming back. Look at that meddling monk. Or Rassilon or that other fellow with his anti-matter experiments.”

“Omega,” the fourth Doctor supplied, though he was still gazing at some internal horror.

“The Master,” Sarah Jane added. She raised a brow at Rose. “They are rather resilient.”

Rose lightly touched her Doctor's arm. “Do you think...? Could there be other Time Lords here?” 

“I don't know,” her Doctor said, sounding angry. “We don't know where we are or what's going on. It seems likely the Isolus is involved. Perhaps it read our subconscious minds. The way it did with Chloe Webber. But...would that be enough to restore my people? I just don't know.”

“Does anyone else need a jelly baby?” Four asked, pulling a worn paper bag from a pocket.

“Jelly babies,” Jack exclaimed. “I can't remember when I last had a jelly baby. Oh, wait, yes I can. It was in Guam. Henderson bet me I couldn't charm the vestigial flange off this Lorgorian waitress--”

“No,” Ten interrupted. 

“No?” Sarah Jane said, giving him a quizzical squint. “What do you mean--”

“No,” he repeated. “No jelly babies. No rambling war stories. No more interruptions. I've changed my mind. I don't care anymore. Rose and I are going to spend the next twenty-four hours in this room in that bed...alone. The lot of you are going to push off. Go investigate. Meddle in someone else's business. Find out if you have homes, friends or relatives lurking. Find out everything you can. Talk to the neighbors.”

“I think we are your neighbors,” Jack said. He held a hand out to Jamie and announced, “Jack Harkness, pleased to meet you.”

“Twenty-four hours?” Jamie stage whispered to his Doctor even as he pumped Jack's offered hand. “What do you think he's planning that would take so long?”

“I'll explain it to you later,” Two said.

“Or I can demonstrate,” Jack said, winking at Nine.

“I doubt we can manage for twenty-four hours without more information, but I suppose we can spare you thirty minutes,” Four said to Ten, standing up as he spoke. “It will take that long to fix a proper tea.”

“Do you think we have food?” Rose asked, brightening again. “I could go for some strawberry ice cream.”

Her Doctor glared at her for a speechless moment or two before rolling his eyes heavenward and declaring, “Oh, I give up.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After a bit of haggling, the other Doctors agreed to give Ten and Rose fifteen minutes to dress. Ten tried to gain a little more time but the others were adamant. Rose sided with the majority. However, as soon as the door closed behind Jamie, she grabbed Ten by both sides of his pajama top and dragged him into another kiss. He braced the flat of his palms on the door, one to each side of her head and gave himself over to the sweet sensation of her tongue lapping under and around his. It took every ounce of his willpower not to send a hundred fizzy darts into her mouth. 

As they broke apart gasping, Nine pounded on the door. “Twelve minutes,” he said.

“Woo,” Rose breathed. Then, she raised her voice and called out, “All right. We're coming.”

“I think that's what worries him,” Ten quipped, nudging her to make her giggle. “Still, best get dressed, I suppose. I doubt this is our last dying moment.”

“It has gone on a bit.” She went to the wardrobe and picked out a pair of loose slacks and a white t-shirt. She couldn't imagine wearing some of the other clothes. “This blouse,” she said, pulling out a hanger and displaying a garment. “I don't like it. Why would I dream up clothes I didn't like and would never wear?”

“That's from the wardrobe,” he said. 

“Yes, I know. I just took it out of there.”

Ten shook his head. “No, I don't mean that wardrobe. The one in the TARDIS.” He examined the some of the other clothing. “All of this is from the TARDIS. These are my suits, shirts and ties. But only some of this is yours. That blouse you are holding belonged to a woman named Liz Shaw.”

“That scientist friend of yours,” Rose said, scowling. “I barely remember her.”

“She didn't spend a lot of time on board.”

“And how did her blouse get in the wardrobe?” Rose asked, lifting a brow. 

He turned red and seemed to be floundering. “Oh, well...I imagine...she had some sort of accident in the lab,” he said. Avoiding Rose's eye, he took an intent interest in searching for his shoes. “She probably had to change...or something? Have you seen my trainers?”

“I'm not jealous,” Rose told him. Catching his arm, she pointed toward a chair in the corner of the room. His trainers were neatly disposed under it. 

“I didn't say you were,” he said, as he sat down in the chair. “There is, after all, absolutely no need.” He pulled on a shoe and began lacing himself into it. “But it has occurred to me that if every one of my former selves shows up here, emotions will be running very high.” 

“We'll keep order somehow,” Rose said, crossing the room to his side. She very gently ruffled his hair. “I wish we could just stay here together, just you and I.” As he lifted his face to look up at her, her fingertips caressed his cheek and her thumb traced the bow of his lower lip.

Eyes closed he leaned into her touch. “We could block the door with the dresser,” he said. “Put the wardrobe in front of the window and....”

A strident voice sounded from the hallway. “I don't care what you promised. Let go of me. I know she's in there. I can feel her. Rose? Sweetheart, can you hear me?”

A frisson of icy fire washed over Rose's skin. Tears blurred her vision and a rushing noise deafened her as she bolted for the door. She was hiccuping through sobs. Her numb fingers scrambled for purchase on the knob. The stubborn thing refused to turn at first and she fought it, crying out, “Mum? I'm here. Here!”

“Oh, out of my way you big oaf,” Jackie Tyler said. There was the carrying sound of a resounding smack. 

Ten snickered as Nine yelped, “Ow!” 

Jackie was at the door, pounding on it. “Mickey? Pete? She's in here. That's her calling me.”

Ten helped Rose with the knob. They sorted out the proper direction to turn it and yanked it toward them. The door flew open and Rose found herself face to face with her entire family. They stared at one another for a few stunned seconds, and then everyone started talking at once.

“Oh, my god, it is her.”

“You disappeared,” Mickey blurted.

“I remember forgetting you,” Pete said. “You were sitting in a chair.”

“I was at death's door, I swear it and then suddenly I heard singing and I remembered having a daughter. How could I forget that? How could I forget you?”

“Mum? Dad? Mickey?”

“And this is Pete Junior,” Jackie said, dragging a red-haired man of about twenty forward into the family hug. “Doesn't he look just like your dad?” He did. He looked almost exactly like Pete Tyler, because Pete didn't look much over twenty himself.

“What is going on?” Nine asked Ten. 

“I think we need to find out.” They could hear crowd noise from the living room. “How many more have arrived?”

“Dozens. The noise levels keeps rising. I'm fairly certain I heard the Brigadier a moment ago.”

“Rose? Jackie?” Ten said, prying the women apart. He gave them both an apologetic but resolute look. “I really do hate to break this up but we need to focus on what's happened before we give in to the temptation to celebrate.”

“Yes, all right,” Rose sighed. She kept an arm around her mother's waist and pillowed her head on Jackie's well-padded shoulder, but she guided the family back down the hall in the wake of the Doctors. “Mum, could you make us all some tea and sandwiches.”

“I'm not leaving you,” Jackie declared. There was panic in her eyes. “You could disappear again. You don't know what that was like, remembering that I'd forgotten.” She sniffled back more tears. “My own daughter?”

Rose gave her a reassuring squeeze. “There, there,” she soothed. “It's going to be all right. But you have to let us figure this out. Dad? Mickey? Can you find Jack? He and Sarah Jane can help you set up some crowd control. Try to clear everyone out of the house.”

When they reached the living room they all stopped to stare at the people gathered inside the room and outside the house on the front lawn. 

“How can there be so many?” Rose asked, looking out the front windows. “I don't even recognize half of them.”

“Not everyone we know,” Ten said, correcting their earlier hypothesis. “It's everyone we've ever known.”

"And we're all the same age," Jackie remarked. "Or close to it."

"We are," Rose agreed, looking around. "That has to mean something." 

“But how did we all get here?” Jackie asked. “How did I know to leave my own house and come here for answers?”

Ten shook his head, at a loss. He raised his voice to address the crowd. “Can I have your attention,” he said. “We'll need to talk to each of you, eventually. But first, we need...well...me. Are there anymore Doctors in the house?”

“Here,” Five said, stepping forward. “And it's good to see you, again, my dear fellow. Solve your shield problem?”

“Yes, thank you,” Ten said, dryly. “Well, almost. Probably not the time to go into it. Anyone else?”

“Here's one,” Donna Noble said, dragging a hapless Twenty-two along by his elbow. “I found him lurking near the back gate. And isn't he an improvement on the skinny weasel look?”

“Donna!” Ten crowed. He bound away from Rose to sweep his ginger-haired and long-departed companion into a bear hug. 

“Put me down. Down!” Donna ordered, shoving at his shoulders. But she was laughing as she struggled to escape. “You'd think you never saw a ghost before and we both know you see them all the time.”

In all there were eighteen Doctors present. Sorting them out wasn't the easiest of tasks. They seemed to have all manifested within a four-block radius of what Rose thought of as her house. Eleven and Fourteen arrived within seconds of each other and there was a bit of a weasel-on-geezer-on-flutterboy dust up when they both challenged Ten's right to sit by Rose. Ten won on reach and stamina, but Rose wasn't at all sure the question of marital claims had been permanently laid to rest. There was an air of temporary truce about her Doctors. 

After everyone had been greeted and embraced, Donna was dispatched to make tea. The room having been mostly cleared of bystanders, the Doctors gathered in a circle, perching on the arms of furniture or slouching against the walls.

Rose took stock. “We're missing Twenty-three and Twenty-four, Sixteen, Thirteen, Six and the original.”

“Twenty-three and Twenty-four make sense, I suppose,” Ten said. “They didn't have time to gel, as it were, in their respective bodies. They were both still in the regenerative cycle when they died. That could be why I've got their memories.”

“A sort of default,” Rose said, nodding. “Does that mean we are also missing another you? Another number Ten?”

“One of him is surely more than enough,” a new voice said. 

Everyone turned to look toward the kitchen door. “What are you dressed up as?” Twenty-two asked, “Grandma's patchwork quilt?”

“You are in no position to cast stones, Long John Silver,” the new arrival intoned, sweeping his critic with a quelling glare. “Were they out of Sinbad costumes at the shop?”

“Six,” Rose greeted the outlandishly dressed Doctor. “How...lovely to see you.”

“You may call me Bernard,” the sixth Doctor declared pompously, as he carried her hand to his lips. “Doctor Lipses Bernard, I think. Might as well have a name. I refuse to be numbered like a billiard ball. And this,” he said, with a gracious dip of his head at his companion, “is Melanie Bush.”

“Well that settles it,” Ten muttered near Rose's ear, “It's not just the people we like who've come back.”

“I don't dislike him,” Rose said from the corner of her mouth, as she carefully extracted her hand from the sixth Doctor's grip. “I haven't even met him properly.”

“No, of course not, you--” Ten broke off, starting like a cat hearing a car backfire. 

“Is he having some sort of seizure?” the third Doctor asked. 

“Hush. Wait, wait, wait,” Ten declared, holding up a finger and cocking his head as if listening for an answer on the wind. After a moment of breathless anticipation, he pointed at Rose. “You haven't met any of them, One to Seven,” he said. “You and she were together when you met these versions of me. The TARDIS, I mean. You met Eight on your own but only grew to know him in the TARDIS years, yes?”

“I met the first you, One,” Rose reminded him, “in the library.”

“When you were about twenty," Ten mused, and then inhaled sharply. "Of course,” he hissed, stabbing his finger forward. He did a little celebratory spin. “The DNA sample.”

“What is he babbling about?” the fifth Doctor muttered.

Six, a.k.a. Doctor Bernard, flicked an invisible speck of dust from his outrageous waistcoat and spoke with marked disinterest, saying, “DNA samples, apparently.”

“Yes...no...yes,” Ten waffled, spitting a bit as he over-enunciated. “That's it.” He patted at the air with both hands as if shushing everyone. Then, he hunkered down and leaned closer to the circle of listeners. He looked about to impart some vital state secret, but all he said was, “Hair.” Then, he straightened again.

“Hair?” Mel repeated, only to be shushed by her Doctor.

“The musical?” Eight guessed.

“Oh, he does this all the time,” Jackie confided. “Talks all day and says absolutely nothing. My Rose can always translate whatever he's on about into English.”

Everyone looked at Rose. She shrugged. “What do you mean 'hair'?” She asked Ten.

“Hair,” he repeated. 

“Yes, you've said that,” Donna sighed, setting down a tea tray overloaded with cups. "Would you like to give us a verb?"

“I fed Rose's hair into the TARDIS data bank. The TARDIS needed a proper blueprint so it could duplicate Rose's body exactly whenever we found an ion storm.” He glanced at the gathered Doctors. “And what is a TARDIS programmed to do? By order of High Council Edict 66-137Theta, subparagraph 885-B?”

“Record our genetic patterns after each regeneration,” Four answered. 

“So that our biodata can be downloaded into the Matrix,” Eight added.

“And compile that biodata with our daily brain scans,” Three went on.

“In order to pass on our collected wisdom to future generations of Time Lords via our Matrix facsimilies,” Five finished.

Ten clapped a hand to his head. Fingers curling, he tugged up his hair as he enthusiastically shouted, “Exactly!”

“Well, I'm still lost,” Jackie told Donna. She took a meditative sip of her tea, before saying, “I thought all of his people were dead and buried. Who cares about their subparagraphs at this late date?”

“I believe he's suggesting that the TARDIS started recording everyone's biodata,” Eight explained. “After the Matrix was destroyed in the war. Or after he fed it this strand of Rose's hair.”

"The TARDIS recreated the Matrix,” Nine said, sounding awed. “Daily brain scans for everybody? But that would take enormous power reserves. She couldn't possibly....” He suddenly looked straight at Rose.

“Is that where we are,” Six said, “in the Matrix? Because there is this blighter calling himself the Valeyard and--”

“That's Thirteen,” Ten said. “It's a fair bet his being completely loony corrupted his biodata or scrambled his brain scans. Which means we may not have to deal with him, at least. And do try to keep up.”

“Hang on a minute,” Rose said. “We couldn't have collected hair samples from everyone we met.”

“You wouldn't have to,” Seven said. “All you would have to do is expand the parameters of the original programming. It used your DNA as a sort of template."

"Is that why everyone is about twenty?" Rose asked. "Because...?"

"They are exactly twenty, I'd say, since you were twenty when you lost that hair," Fourteen said. 

"The TARDIS has access to the Vortex. Time isn't linear. It's a sort of wibbly-wobbly--” Ten and Five both cleared their throats and Eight finished with a quick cough, saying, “It could, in theory, continue a pattern through time and space, exponentially.” 

“Everyone we know,” Ten said.

“And everyone they know,” Three added. “And so on and so forth.”

“Where would it stop?” Rose asked, glancing toward the window again. The crowd outside continued to grow. People were milling about restlessly, even though Sarah Jane, Pete, Jack and Mickey were doing their best to keep order. Nine and Ten exchanged speaking glances.

“Oh, come on,” Rose insisted, “it would have to stop somewhere!”

“Oh, yes, absolutely,” Ten agreed. Cutting his gaze away from Nine, he focused on her. “Where do you think it would stop, Rose?”

“Why are you asking her?” Jackie said, bristling as she stepped between them. “You're the genius. Or so you keep saying.”

“This has gone far enough,” Ten said. He pointed toward the front lawn. “Outside that window is a whole city. And all of those people came here for answers. To a house they knew. A house that belonged to someone who could explain what happened. Drawn to you, Rose, like Jack was drawn to you when he came back from the dead. He went to the Powell Estates, over and over again. Like you, Donna, were drawn into the TARDIS.”

Nine spoke in a reverent hush. “I took it out of her,” he said. “Every bit of it.”

“Not every bit,” Ten said, his eyes fixed on Rose's face. 

“You left the root behind,” Nineteen said, quietly. “There's a door in the back of her mind.”

“All that is. All that was. All that ever will be,” Ten intoned. “How does everybody know where to go, Rose?” he asked. “What is it you're not telling us?”

“Nothing,” Rose insisted, tearful frustration making her voice wobble. “I woke up just like you, just like everyone else.”

“All right. That's enough. All of you back off,” Jackie snapped. “I mean it. I won't have you badgering her.”

“Mum, please,” Rose said, seizing her mother's hand. “They're just trying to help.” She stared into her Doctor's eyes. “I swear, I don't know what's going on. I'm as confused as the rest of you. I was dying and I woke up in this house in bed with you. Before that I was...falling. The TARDIS was breaking apart. Something hit us. I wanted to see it. I thought, maybe, if it was the Isolus, it could help up. I asked to be patched through to the outside monitors.”

The breath caught in her throat. She'd asked to be patched through to the Isolus. She'd gone to the door in her mind. It had shrunk to a pinprick but it was still there. All that power. All of time and space at her command. Everything else so tiny. The Isolus understood about life.

Without another word, Rose broke from the circle of Doctors. She strode purposefully to the door and yanked it open. The crowd gasped and fell silent. As she stepped out of the house, they parted. They all seemed to be orienting to her, even the ones she had never met. She scanned the crowd for familiar faces and found a lady who came to her mother for dye jobs and a merchant from the asteroid bazaar. Her primary school teacher, Mr. Sprinkle stood to her left by some bougainvillea bushes. The Doctor loved bougainvillea blossoms. A woman clutched Mr. Sprinkle's hand. She might be his wife. Rose didn't know as she had never met his wife. But she recognized Martha Jones and her husband and Jo Grant and her Dr. Green and the Brigadier helping Jack keep order. 

She remembered the TARDIS Heart slipping away from her. She remembered calling out to it, begging it to help her save the Doctor. The Heart had responded but not through the usual communications systems of the dying ship. It had spoken to Rose through the direct link in her mind. It told her they were not subject to the rules of reality. The Heart could not die. So Rose could not die.

_You are not flesh. You are my interface._

A voice, those same words, seemed to throb from the ground beneath Rose's feet. Golden light flooded her being. It shone from her eyes. People gasped and shrank away from her. She gripped the door frame to keep from falling as her knees turned to jelly. She swallowed the cold bile that flooded her mouth. As the Doctors pressed out of the door behind her, she continued her recollection.

“I asked to be patched through to the Isolus. But the mechanical interface was fragmenting. I tried to explain to the Heart of the TARDIS about you dying. About needing to be whole again.”

_You are whole._

“This is my fault,” Rose said, one hand at her throat. She pushed her way into the crowd and stumbled across the lawn until she fell to her knees in the grass. Her Doctor was beside her in a moment. He caught her in his arms, holding her close, murmuring sweet nothings into her ear as he rocked her. 

“It's not your fault,” he said. “I should never have asked you to remember.”

“No, no,” she said, shifting in the circle of his arms to capture and hold his gaze. When he stopped protesting, she glanced beyond him to her mother and the other Doctors. “It was me. It is me." Her attention shifted down. "Here,” she said, digging her fingers into the loam by Ten's right knee. “Look.” 

He watched her tug free huge tufts of sod. Dirt blackened her nails. She kept mumbling to herself. Telling him it was with them, under the ground. Something was under them. Several inches down she uncovered what she was looking for, a twisted white root of some kind. She shook loose soil from the pulsating thing as she drew it out into the air. He recognized it as soon as she displayed it on her open palm. 

“It's a seedling,” Two exclaimed, surging forward to peer at the root. “An infant TARDIS.”

“The TARDIS went to seed?” Nine blinked at the news. There was a general murmur of wonderment and confusion from the assembled onlookers.

“The Heart couldn't patch me through,” Rose said, wiping a tear from her eye with a grimy knuckle. “She tried but the interface, the part of the TARDIS that the Time Lords cultivated, was going to seed, breaking into pieces at the end of its lifespan.”

“With no ground below, in the vacuum of space,” Ten said. “The seedlings would die.”

“Yes,” Rose said. “Like you were dying. Like everyone we knew had died. The Heart was slipping away, taking me with her, leaving death behind.”

“Because you are not flesh,” Ten said. He drew a deep breath and released it. “You asked her to help?” 

Rose nodded. “I told her to ask the Isolus our question.”

“What question would that be,” a man's voice asked politely. 

Rose glanced toward the speaker. There was a very dapper man at her gate. He had long brown hair and twinkling blue eyes and he carried a walking stick he scarcely seemed to need. He stood very straight. And even though he was rail thin, he looked to be agile and strong. Rose would have placed him in his late thirties. But she barely gave him a second thought. It was the young woman at his side who arrested her complete attention. 

“Susan?” she croaked. She clutched at her Doctor's lapels. “Tell me you see her.”

There was a faint white line around Ten's mouth. “I see her,” he managed to say in a hoarse whisper, “and him.” 

Tears were streaming down his cheeks. He tried to stand up but didn't have the strength and sank back to his knees again. Jackie and Donna both pushed their way to him. Jackie took his elbow. Donna cupped a hand under his arm. A chorus of gasps and exclamations escaped the other Doctors as they all careened toward the gate. Their expressions ran the gamut from pleased to completely overwhelmed.

“Who is that?” Donna asked. 

“Never saw them before in my life,” Jackie answered.

“That's our daughter, mum,” Rose said. “Your granddaughter, Susan. You've seen pictures.”

Ten gave a burbling laugh and shook his head. “No...it's all of them,” he said, working his way past the choking lump in his throat. He bobbed his chin at the dapper young man beside Susan, the one who had spoken to Rose. “That's me. A very, very young me. And beyond me, that's...Ori-Orisriana, my sister. That's....my brother and his wife and their son and....” Once again, he lost his ability to speak.

An equally overset Nine was being held up by Jack and the Brigadier but he turned to say, “And my two daughters. Susan's husband, David. That's my entire family, Rose, at our gate.”

“Time Lords?” Rose said. It seemed like the wrong answer to her.

She struggled to rise, but the boneless Ten was an anchor around her shoulders. He shook his head. “People. Just my people. I'm the only Time Lord in the family, other than my parents. And I don't see them.”

“Maybe they would fracture,” Fourteen said, “Like us. Thirteen individuals.”

"Maybe they are still out there somewhere," Donna said. "This can't be everyone on the planet."

“Or maybe their biodata was destroyed,” Two said, grimly, “with all the rest of it.” 

Rose didn't know. The knowing was slipping away from her, the way the crowd would slip away once they'd been told how this had all happened. Word must spread from here, from her. She still understood what the people were waiting for, at least. The Wolf would fade, disappear behind the door in her mind once she told them about it. It was going to give them all room to live full and fulfilling lives. 

She didn't have the strength to lift her Doctor to his feet and didn't have the heart to stand without him. So, they stayed on the ground until Donna and Jackie helped them up. Other willing hands reached out to assist the other Doctors, several of whom looked ready to collapse. Everyone talked but in hushed tones. Everyone waited to be released. Rose felt too dazed to move, but the crowd shifted propelling her and Ten to the gate. 

Both humans and Gallifreyans huddled in their respective family groups on either side of the picket fencing, equally shy. Everyone simply stared at one another for a long time. A cool breeze blew leaves around their feet. As feeling returned to her numb body, Rose noticed the wind drying her tears. She felt an ache in her clenched fingers. Glancing down, she realized she was still clutching the seedling to her breast. She extended her hand again, opening it to show the Doctor's family what she held. They all looked at the throbbing new life in her hands.

“I am the Bad Wolf,” Rose said. “The Organic Interface for a Type 40C TARDIS. I create myself. Over and over again, I am renewed.”

There was a collective sigh from all of those gathered. This was what they had come to hear. Knowing why they existed would set them all free, Rose was sure of it.

“The Heart of the TARDIS is so vast. And you...us...everything in our universe is so tiny. She never understood it. Never understood about life or death, not really. The Heart exists outside reality, beyond Time and Relative Dimensions in Space, even beyond the void. She worked with you, with the Time Lords, saving your memories and your biodata via the physical interface, helping you travel through the Vortex, but she didn't understand anything about your universe. Only that Time Lords renew. You regenerate. Jack renews. This,” she lifted the seed a bit higher, “is how her physical interface renews. Every TARDIS has the same Heart."

Her Doctor hugged her closer. He pressed his cheek to hers. Their tears mingled and, once again, the ironic urge to get away, to be alone together took them both. Rose interlaced her fingers with his. He longed to take her by that hand and run. But aware of the people gathered around them, silently waiting for an explanation, he managed to pull himself together. They knew they would have plenty of time to enjoy each other now. There were long, joyful years ahead of them. The people had come to be told. He and Rose must tell them.

“All that power,” Ten said, shifting a bit away from Rose, “concentrated in one place, on one thought. An Isolus merged with the Time Vortex, all of time and space at your commmand and an endless source of ionic energy.”

His original self leaned forward, blue eyes boring into brown. “You could create worlds,” One said, awed by the magnitude of it. He didn't need to know what an Isolus was to grasp the concept of it. “Create life out of nothing.”

“Or recreate it,” Jack said suddenly. His gaze met Rose's and she saw the knowledge in his eyes. “What are we but atoms rearranged, a spark of life and personality? If you know us well, then...you can bring us back.”

“We are the body of the Bad Wolf,” Ten answered, “all of us.” He gave Rose another squeeze and a lopsided grin. “Of course, you aren't flesh. You're Rose. Mind and soul. Affection and understanding. You're everything here. The people you love. The people they love. Everyone you ever knew. Everyone they ever knew. This city. Those mountains. This planet. This is what the TARDIS Heart knows about you, Rose. She told the Isolus everything she knew about you and asked it to make you whole again.”

Rose nodded in confirmation. “And just like with Jack,” she said, smiling over at the man she'd once gifted with eternal life, “they didn't quite know where to stop.”

 

TEN THOUSAND YEARS LATER

 

They lay side by side in the shelter of a mountaintop glen, Rose and her Doctor. The scent of apple grass teased their noses. Behind them, the silver leaves of a jaumelia grove caught the last rays of the setting sun and shimmered with false fire. Rose pointed to a rainbow arc rocketing across the sky. "There they go. That's everyone away."

"Alone at last," the Doctor said. "Shall we celebrate?" 

“We should.”

"I've written you a poem,” he told her.

“Another one,” Rose sighed, but there was indulgent affection in the sidelong glance she gave him. 

Needing no further encouragement, he immediately launched into verse.

_Again and again, however we know the landscape of love_  
and the little churchyard there, with its sorrowing names,  
and the frighteningly silent abyss into which the others  
fall: again and again the two of us walk out together  
under the ancient trees, lie down again and again  
among the flowers, face to face with the sky. 

“Isn't that Rainer Maria Rilke?" 

“Is it?” His lower lip protruded as he considered her claim. Finally, he shrugged and, squirming around to face her, said, “That's the trouble with living forever; every thing has been written already.”

"Are we doomed to repeat ourselves, then?" Rose asked, carrying his hand to her cheek. She nuzzled into his touch, brushed her lips along his fingers, and then lightly kissed his palm. "Or shall we just stay here napping?”

“Asleep under the stars," the Doctor mused, "just like Rassilon, dreaming in his tower forever and ever. Eternity is a curse, not a blessing. Nothing left to do but go to seed.” 

“I think we've already done that, as well,” Rose giggled, opening her body and mind to him. 

As he entered her, she cradled his face between her hands. They made love until they were both sweaty and breathless. It still felt good to be flesh, but she knew they could be so much more. All it would take was a little daring. And they were nothing if not a little daring. She let the dreaming seed carry them together into a labyrinth of multicolored light. Rose held her Doctor's hand, interlacing their fingers, and led him through her bright corridors to the one place he'd never been brave enough to assail. They stood hand in hand, facing the forbidden golden door, her inner gateway to the Vortex. 

“Oh, this is brilliant,” he exclaimed, happy to be reminded of this one unexplored corner of creation.

“Would you like to see?” Rose asked, her not-quite-human voice echoing through the valley. “All that is and was and ever will be?”

She felt the fearful hesitation in him as their flesh dissolved and their dream selves faded. They lost a sense of their physical separation and became nothing but intertwining thought.

 _I have seen. I ran away,_ he confessed.

_The first time? Yes. I know. But the second time you took it into your body to save me. This time let it take you into it._

_Lose myself? Lose the Doctor? What else is there?_

She gave him a playful, mental nudge. 

_Well...if you think there's going to be trouble...we can always just go back._

He laughed with her, remembering their shared joke, and gleefully responded, _Let's find out._

They pushed the door open together and merged, becoming a single strand of golden light as they stepped through into the Heart of the TARDIS. The Vortex boiled around them and three beings fused into one. The riptide of eternity swept them away from reality and time. Once they'd adjusted their perspective, they found the fine line which represented the retreating shore of their former universe. A thousand tributaries, streaming life-lights, stretched from their united consciousness back to that shallow homeland. Every minute stream of awareness anchored them to a ship. And on every ship their children's children chattered away about new worlds and boundless horizons yet to be explored. 

 

THE END


End file.
